1. SharePoint & Power BI: Better Together
Poll: O365 users, PBI users
Have open: PBI web app, PBI desktop
How to get SP data out of SP and present it in a dashboard
Christine Payton

2. What is Power BI? Easy-to-use dashboard/data exploration tool
WAY easier than SharePoint (assuming you don’t get into DAX)
Part of O365
If you don’t have O365, you can also sign up at powerbi.com with any address, as long as it is not associated with a MS “personal” account.
It is free to use with SharePoint Online data in most cases
On-premise data requires a $10/month license for viewers and creators
Consists of a desktop application and web application
Support is abnormally responsive

3. Demo: SharePoint Profiles
Profile data syncs to the “UserInformationList” in SharePoint, which is accessible via OData feed in Power BI.
Here’s the list URL:
SharePoint side of the demo: because this is the SPUG
Data entered in a profile is accessible via the “user information list”
name/department/manager fields are there by default. Can add more with custom profile properties

4. Customizing the Profile
Instructions are for O365
Create a new property in the SharePoint admin center.

5. Configuring the Property
Type: Single/Multi Value – can ONLY be set at creation
Length: Doesn’t seem to actually do anything (resets to some large number no matter what you enter)
A closed term set is a good idea, you can add instructions for how to request additions in the description field. Have the term set imported before creating the property.
“Replicable” box: This is what pushes the data to the User Information List (note: takes forever to replicate the very first time… like… up to a month in SPO)
I can make our crowdsourced starter term sets available on meetup, or me

6. Configuring the Property
You want your users to be able to enter data in the field, right?
If you index the property, you can also use the field values as refiners in people searches! (requires mapping to a RefinableString property in search center)

7. Making it Easier to Get To
This is where your custom properties end up: buried where no one will ever find them. Luckily, we can move them!

8. Moving the Properties
In the “manage properties” area, you can move properties up and down the property list
Move the custom ones into the “Basic Information” section by clicking the up arrow many, many times
Anyone know of a better way to do this? PowerShell?
Also enter some data in a profile to help trigger replication?
Swap presentation to other screen, present desktop app

9. On to Power BI Download the application at http://powerbi.com
Connecting to the data: Use data source OData feed or “SharePoint List” (I prefer OData).
OData URL: in/listdata.svc
Authentication Type: For O365, Organizational. On-premise: varies
Select your UserInformationList, then “Edit”
*wait for data to populate; hard to tell from looking at SP list because the view is not configured to show your columns
SharePoint Server – need personal gateway for refresh (Odata and SP List both still work)
If you’re not connecting to profile data, use site URL in Odata feed

10. Clean Up Your Data
Select the columns you want to keep and “Remove Other Columns”
“Remove” vs “Remove Other” – “Remove Other” allows you to go back and edit the step to change columns later.
Filter out the not-real-people entries
I like to do this by removing people with null departments in combination with a custom property we set with PowerShell for employee type. The former removes service accounts, the later removes offboarded staff.

11. Splitting Multiple Value Fields
If you allowed multiple values for your properties, you will have comma or semicolon separated values in those columns in your profile list. You will want to count these in a separate table (I use one for each property).
Right click -> Reference to create a new table from your source.
Do another “remove other” – I like to leave name, ID, and the property I’m splitting and remove the rest.
Rename the table something descriptive

12. Splitting Multiple Value Fields
Remove the null value entries for the column
Split by delimiter – “custom,” so you can add a space at the end (the SP values have a trailing space)
Let it split into as many columns as it needs under Advanced (unless it’s a weirdly high number… happens) – it tends to adjust according to how many entries people have

13. Splitting Multiple Value Fields
Looks messy! Now let’s unpivot
Select your Name and ID columns (holding shift), right click, “Unpivot Other Columns”
Remove the junk Attribute column, rename Value to something descriptive
Select all, right click, remove duplicates (long story: SharePoint bug creates duplicate column values in User Info List)

14. Optional: Create Relationships
Creating relationships will allow you to create visuals that combine multiple tables. For instance:
Which personality types correlate with which skills?
Which school did people go to for which what education level?
Relationships may be created automatically, you’ll want to check to make sure they are accurate (they are often not, and can cause errors).
Create relationships that relate your fields back to your “main” table (one to many, direction: both).

15. Make a Report
Create visuals by selecting a visualization type, then dragging columns into the axis, legend, and value buckets.
You can sort using the three-dot menu in the corner of the visual
Change the visual title, data labels, and colors under the paintbrush icon

16. Publish to Power BI
To share your dashboard, you need to publish it.

17. Create a Dashboard
Pin visuals from the web app to create a dashboard (click the pin icon to pin). A dashboard is what gets “shared.”
You can pin items from multiple reports to one dashboard.
Clicking a tile in the dashboard opens that tab of the report.
Natural language query

18. Schedule a Refresh Daily is free
You need to enter credentials in setup (auth type OAuth 2)
Your credentials will expire once in a long while; you’ll get a notification of the failure. You will need to go back and re-enter your credentials to fix

19. Licensing Tips & Tricks
“Pro Features” – triggers pro license requirements for the dashboard (license necessary for all viewers)
Sharing with security groups
Publishing to shared workspaces (a.k.a. O365 Groups)
On-premise data refresh
Sharing with distribution groups does not trigger pro features; however it was buggy last time I tried it. Microsoft says they will fix it this year sometime.
You can also batch-share with semicolon separated lists of addresses.
Embedding: Microsoft is working on it, alternately there is a third-part app.

20. Examples: Goal Tracking
Power BI can be used with any SharePoint list, here’s some ideas!

21. Example: SP Profiles

22. Example: Case Management

23. Example: Nomination Forms

24. Examples: O365 Data Feed
OData Feed: eportingWebService/Reporting.svc
Use admin credentials, Basic Authentication

25. Example: SharePoint Usage
Word on SP embeds

26. Resources Powerbi.com – many step-by-step tutorials
Power BI Community – user-based forum
EdX Courses
Meetup: Power BI User Group, same day as SPUG at 6PM
Questions?
Sizzle pie..