2024 Week 20 | Power BI: Build your first report with Dynamics 365 Business Central Data

2 Comments / Power BI, Workout Wednesday / By

Introduction

Welcome back to Workout Wednesday! This week’s challenge is for participants new to Power BI and/or new to data visualization. We’re building a report containing 2 charts, a table, and a slicer. My challenge to you is to design the report in a way that a) makes sense to business users and b) is accessible to all. Feel free to use the sample report as a template or design something on your own.

We’re working with data from Microsoft’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution, called Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC). The backend of D365 is an Azure SQL database with a predefined schema, and as such, it contains a plethora of standard tables and fields that you may not need in your reporting. I had a lot of fun keeping only the columns I needed in Power Query 😉 

Find the data and instructions to complete the challenge below, and as always, have fun!

 

Requirements

    Get and transform data

  1. Use the starter Power BI desktop file that contains sample data generated by D365 BC.
  2. There are no transformations required using the starter file. Note that if you’re connecting to your own D365 BC instance, you’ll need to:
    • use the D365 BC connector and then use either the APIs or the Web services (or both) to get your data
    • in Power Query, notice that some of the tables have upwards of 60 columns. Keep only the columns you need!
    • after you transform data, close and load and create relationships between your tables

  Create visuals

  1. Start by thinking about what you’re trying to tell your users. Use that to come up with a descriptive title.
  2. Use the inbuilt themes to choose an accessible theme. I take it a step further and customize mine to increase the font size on all visuals.
  3. Add data to the canvas.
    •  Add a bar chart and pie chart, ensuring the data colors match for each of the customers
    • Add a table or matrix
    • Add a slicer
  4. Add any other design elements that you’d like
  5. Ensure that all visuals meet the minimum standards of having alt text, that the tab order in your report makes sense, and that your color choices meet the minimum contrast standards.
  6. As always, mix up the design in any way you see fit! This should be fun!

Dataset

This week’s data comes from the Dynamics365 Business Central sample data. You can find it in the starter Power BI desktop file.

Share

After you finish your workout, share on Twitter or LinkedIn using the hashtags #WOW2024 and #PowerBI, and tag @MMarie, @shan_gsd, @KerryKolosko. 

Also make sure to fill out the Submission Tracker so that we can count you as a participant this week in order to track our participation throughout the year.

Solution

Solution File available for download.

2 thoughts on “2024 Week 20 | Power BI: Build your first report with Dynamics 365 Business Central Data”

  1. Rita

    Hi Admin,
    Excellent dashboard and challenges are posted I would really want to try all the dashboard in weekly basis but the problem is that i am a beginner, If you post viedo with explanation it would be great to follow. I have posted it many times, please take this feedback. It would be helpful for many beginners to learn and upscale their skills for job hunt

  2. Shannon Lindsay

    Hi Rita! We do try to post videos when we can 🙂 The Workout Wednesday team is entirely volunteer and as such, sometimes we can’t find the time to make videos. Here’s a great video for beginners from our friend Adam over at Guy in a Cube: https://youtu.be/B_bAKrXAUh0?si=22bxriDtaSoFLHtR

    Thanks for joining us and for your feedback!

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top