Gain insights that can help turn

your sales and marketing

numbers into data-driven success
stories
Get started by signing up
for Power BI online and
downloading the desktop
app
 powerbi.microsoft.com

1. Run the first module of the online course

The Learning area of the website includes an
excellent course featuring both video and
text. If you are new to Power BI, consider
running the Getting Started learning module
before continuing with this eBook.

2. Download the Power BI desktop app

This is a free, advanced, and locally running
environment for developing custom Power
BI solutions and publishing them to the
Power BI portal.

3. Sign up for a free Power BI trial

If you don’t already have a Power BI license, this will give you
access to the Power BI portal and pre-built content packs for
Dynamics 365 and Dynamics Marketing. (The free trial is fully
functional, but does not allow you to share or embed your
reports or dashboards.)
Use Power BI with Microsoft Dynamics 365
Configure site settings Work with user
accounts and staff contacts
Get your first taste of
Dynamics 365 with Power BI
by loading a preconfigured
dashboard and connecting
it to your system
powerbi.microsoft.com

• Dynamics 365 (online) content packs normally ask for

the domain name only, such as:
https://<OrganizationName>.crm.dynamics.com
• Dynamics Marketing content packs normally require
the full endpoint URL, such as:
https://<OrganizationName>.marketing.dynamics.com
/analytics
• Microsoft Dynamics Marketing content pack for Power BI
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 content pack for Power BI

Customize Microsoft Dynamics 365 Power BI content packs

Many customers tell us they’d
like to see email KPIs from
Dynamics Marketing right in
Dynamics 365. It’s easy with
Power BI!
1. Launch the Power BI Desktop application. 4. The OData Feed window opens. Enter the URL you found for
your Dynamics Marketing instance (as described earlier in this
2. From the ribbon’s Home tab, click the Get Data button.
eBook).

3. The Get Data window opens. Here you can choose from a
variety of data sources, including Dynamics 365 (online). But
Dynamics Marketing provides a standard OData feed, so
choose OData Feed and click Connect.
5. If you have never connected to this data source before (and
you probably haven’t), then you are now asked to sign in to
Dynamics Marketing. Choose the Organizational account tab
from the left column and, from the Select which level to
apply these settings to drop-down list, choose the URL that
ends with “/analytics.” (The connection will fail if you leave this
as the default, which doesn’t include the full path.) Then click
Sign in.
6. An Office 365 sign-in window opens. Use it to sign in using the 8. The Navigator window opens. This window enables you to
Office 365 account that you normally use to sign in to choose which data feeds to connect to. Mark the check box
Dynamics Marketing. for EmailTrackingResults and Contacts and then click Load.

7. You now return to the Power BI desktop app. The button that
used to say Sign in should now say Sign in as a different
user, which means that you are now signed in. Click Connect.
1. The Power BI Desktop App now loads data from your selected • ∑ Id: This is the unique identifier column from the table,
feeds, which may take several seconds depending on how but we will use it to count the number of unique IDs that
much data you have. When it’s done, you see the two feeds have a given EmailName and Type (which is why it is
you chose listed in the Fields pane. Expand the prefixed with a sigma). The result will be to count, for
EmailTrackingResults feed to see the list of fields it contains. example, how many times a given email was clicked on.
3. Note that when you click the first checkbox, you create and
select a new table in the canvas area. Each additional box you
select adds rows to that table. Also, each field that you add to
the table also gets added under Visualizations > Values. You
can drag and drop the fields under Values to rearrange the
table if needed. When you are done, your result should
resemble the following:

2. Under the EmailTrackingResults feed, mark the following

check boxes (in this order):
• EmailName: This is the name assigned to each email
message for which tracking results were collected.
• Type: This is the type of result that was recorded. Possible
values are: sent (a message was sent to a contact),
delivered (the message was not blocked or bounced),
render (a contact opened the message and loaded
images), and click (a contact clicked a link in the mail).
4. With the table selected, click on the Clustered bar chart 6. Deselect your current bar chart by clicking away from it
button at the top of the Visualizations pane. Your data anywhere on the canvas. Under the EmailTrackingResults
table now turns into a bar chart, and the fields you picked are feed, mark the following check boxes (in this order):
now assigned logical roles in the chart, with the email name
• CompanyName: This is the company associated with each
on the Y-axis, the ID count along the X-axis and the result
contact that the message was sent to.
types shown in the legend, each indicated by a colored bar.
• Type: This is the type of result that was recorded (same as
before).
• ∑ Id: The result count (same as before).
7. You should now see a new table, which is probably a bit larger
than the last one (provided you have company information in
your data). With this new table selected, click on the Clustered
bar chart button to convert the table to a bar chart. This
time, the chart shows email results per company rather than
per email.

5. Don’t forget to save your work. Click the Save icon in the
menu bar and choose a name and location for your Power BI
file.
8. Arrange your two charts in a logical way by dragging and
dropping them and using the resize handles to resize them.
9. Try clicking on the various bars in the two charts. Notice that
each time you select a bar, all the charts on the page indicate
which other bars include your selected data. For example, if
you choose the Render (open) bar for a particular email
message, the company list updates to indicate the portion of
each company’s open results that came from that message.
Likewise, if you select the Render bar from the company list,
the message list updates to indicate which portion of each
message’s open results came from that company.
1. Clear your column selection by clicking on one of your charts, 4. Click the Fix This button. The Relationship Detection window
but away from any columns. Then deselect all your charts by opens, with a diagnosis of your problem. Because the
clicking in an empty area of the canvas. Dynamics Marketing OData feed is formatted with consistent
naming, we can expect that Power BI can easily figure out
2. Now we’ll add just one more chart, this time to show
what the relationship should be, so just click Autodetect.
geographical information. Start by marking the following
check boxes (in this order) under the EmailTrackingResults
feed:
• Type: This is the type of result that was recorded (same as
before).
• ∑ Id: The result count (same as before).
3. With your new table still selected, expand the Contacts feed in
the Fields pane and mark the City check box. You should now
see an error message. This error occurs because you added a
field from a foreign table to a visualization that, until now,
showed data from just one data table. Power BI needs to know
how the two tables are related before it can understand how
to combine the data.
5. Power BI shows the result of the autodetection, which should 6. With your new table still selected, click the Map button to
be correct, so just click Close. convert it into a map (don’t use the Filled Map). The table
now converts to a map with pie charts superimposed over the
relevant cities. If you’d like, resize the map to take up most of
the remaining room on your canvas, and then use your mouse
scroll wheel to zoom and drag the map to a position where
you see the most interesting data.

7. As before, try clicking the various colored bars and pie charts
on the page. Note that all the displays change to highlight the
types of data that you choose.
1. From the ribbon’s Home tab, click the Publish button. 3. You should now be in your web browser, looking at your
Power BI site, which should now include a new dataset and
report, each showing the same name that you used when
saving your work locally with the Power BI App. The new items
are marked with a yellow asterisk. You should see them listed
in the navigation pane on the left. (Click the Show navigation
2. If you are asked to save your file, click Yes. If you are asked to button at the top-left if you don’t see the pane)
sign in, then sign in using an Office 365 account where you
have a trial or full license for Power BI. When the publish is
finished, you’re given the chance to go directly to your new
report on the Power BI site. Click the Open link (or, if that
doesn’t work then open a browser and navigate manually to
the Power BI account where you published the report).

4. In the Navigation pane, click the new item under the Reports
heading. You should now see the report that you just
published from the Power BI Desktop App.
5. Your report should contain three visualizations. Choose the 7. A new dashboard, showing the name you gave it, is now
one that seems most useful and hover your mouse pointer in added to the Dashboards list in the navigator pane.
the upper-right corner. Then click the Pin visual button shown
there.

6. The Pin to dashboard dialog window pops up. Mark the New
dashboard radio button and enter a name for your new
dashboard in the field provided (such as “Marketing Email
Results”). Then click the Pin button.
1. Sign in to Dynamics 365 using the same Office 365 account 5. A new, empty dashboard is created for you. Enter a Name in
that you used in Power BI and Dynamics Marketing. field provided and then click the Power BI icon shown in
the middle of an unassigned tile.
2. Go to any Dashboard view that is available to you in
Dynamics 365. For example, dashboards are available under
the Sales, Service, and Marketing navigation tiles.
3. Click the New button in the Dashboards tool bar.

4. The Choose Layout dialog window opens. Choose 2-column

layout (or any other layout you like) and then click Create.

6. The Power BI Tile dialog window opens. Choose the Power

BI Dashboard that you created earlier in this procedure and
then choose a Tile name. Click OK to add the tile to Dynamics
365.
7. Click Save and then Close from the Dashboards tool bar.
8. You should now have a simple dashboard with your preferred 9. Click anywhere on the tile to open the related report right
visualization displayed as a tile. inside of Dynamics 365. You should now see all three of the
visualizations that you added to your report. You can explore
the data, just as you could in the Power BI App, by clicking any
colored bar or pie chart; all tiles update to highlight your
selected data.
 Customize Microsoft Dynamics
365 Power BI content packs

Learning

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connect, and customize sample
Power BI workbooks
Dynamics 365 Customer Center
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