Plan a Power BI App offer

  • Article

This article highlights the content and requirements you need to have ready or completed to publish a Power BI app to Microsoft AppSource. A Power BI app packages customizable content, including datasets, reports, and dashboards. You can then use the app with other Power BI platforms using AppSource, perform the adjustments and customizations allowed by the developer, and connect it to your own data.

Before you begin, review these links, which provide templates, tips, and samples:

Publishing benefits

Benefits of publishing to the commercial marketplace:

  • Promote your company by using the Microsoft brand.
  • Potentially reach more than 100 million Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 users on AppSource and more than 200,000 organizations through Azure Marketplace.
  • Receive high-quality leads from these marketplaces.
  • Have your services promoted by the Microsoft field and telesales teams.

Overview

Overview of the steps to publish a Power BI app offer.

If you're ready to create your offer now, see Next steps below. Otherwise, continue reading to ensure you're properly prepared before starting the offer creation process.

These are the key publishing steps covered in the next several topics:

  1. Create your application in Power BI. You'll receive a package install link, which is the main technical asset for the offer. Send the test package to pre-production before creating the offer in Partner Center. For details, see What are Power BI apps?
  2. Add the marketing materials, such as official name, description, and logos.
  3. Include the offer's legal and support documents, such as terms of use, privacy policy, support policy, and user help.
  4. Create the offer – Use Partner Center to edit the details, including the offer description, marketing materials, legal information, support information, and asset specifications.
  5. Submit it for publishing.
  6. Monitor the process in Partner Center, where the AppSource onboarding team tests, validates, and certifies your app.
  7. After it's certified, review the app in its test environment and release it. This will list it on AppSource (it "goes live").
  8. In Power BI, send the package into production. For details, see Manage the Power BI app release.

Requirements

To be published in the commercial marketplace, your Power BI app offer must meet the following technical and business requirements.

Technical requirements

The main technical asset you need is a Power BI app. This is a collection of primary datasets, reports, or dashboards. It also includes optional connected services and embedded datasets, previously known as a content pack. For more information about developing this type of app, see What are Power BI apps?.

Get an installation web address

You can only build a Power BI app within the Power BI environment.

  1. Sign in with a Power BI Pro license.
  2. Create and test your app in Power BI.
  3. When you receive the app installation web address, add it to the Technical Configuration page in Partner Center.

After your app is created and tested in Power BI, save the application installation web address, as you'll need it to create a Power BI app offer.

Business requirements

The business requirements include procedural, contractual, and legal obligations. You must:

Licensing options

This is the only licensing option available for Power BI app offers:

Licensing option Transaction process
Get it now (free) List your offer to customers for free.

* As the publisher, you support all aspects of the software license transaction, including (but not limited to) order, fulfillment, metering, billing, invoicing, payment, and collection.

Customer leads

The commercial marketplace will collect leads with customer information so you can access them in the Referrals workspace in Partner Center. Leads will include information such as customer details along with the offer name, ID, and online store where the customer found your offer.

You can also choose to connect your CRM system to your offer. The commercial marketplace supports Dynamics 365, Marketo, and Salesforce, along with the option to use an Azure table or configure an HTTPS endpoint using Power Automate. For detailed guidance, see Customer leads from your commercial marketplace offer.

You'll need terms and conditions that customers must accept before they can try your offer, or a link to where they can be found.

Offer listing details

Note

Offer listing content isn't required to be in English if the offer description begins with the phrase "This application is available only in [non-English language]".

To help create your offer more easily, prepare these items ahead of time. All are required except where noted.

  • Name – The name will appear as the title of your offer listing in the commercial marketplace. The name can be trademarked. It can't contain emojis (unless they are the trademark and copyright symbols) and is limited to 200 characters.
  • Search results summary – The purpose or function of your offer as a single sentence with no line breaks in 100 characters or less. This is used in the commercial marketplace listing(s) search results.
  • Description – This description displays in the commercial marketplace listing(s) overview. Consider including a value proposition, key benefits, intended user base, any category or industry associations, in-app purchase opportunities, any required disclosures, and a link to learn more. This text box has rich text editor controls to make your description more engaging. Optionally, use HTML tags for formatting.
  • Search keywords (optional) – Up to three search keywords that customers can use to find your offer. Don't include the offer Name and Description; that text is automatically included in search.
  • Products your app works with (optional) – The names of up to three products your offer works with.
  • Help/Privacy policy links – The URL for your company's help and privacy policy. You are responsible for ensuring your app complies with privacy laws and regulations.
  • Contact information
    • Support contact – The name, phone, and email that Microsoft partners will use when your customers open tickets. Include the URL for your support website.
    • Engineering contact – The name, phone, and email for Microsoft to use directly when there are problems with your offer. This contact information isn't listed in the commercial marketplace.
    • Supporting documents (optional) – Up to three customer-facing documents, such as whitepapers, brochures, checklists, or PowerPoint presentations, in PDF form.
  • Media
    • Logos – A PNG file for the Large logo. Partner Center will use this to create other required logo sizes. You can optionally replace these with different images later.
    • Screenshots – At least one and up to five screenshots that show how your offer works. Images must be 1280 x 720 pixels, in PNG format, and include a caption.
    • Videos (optional) – Up to four videos that demonstrate your offer. Include a name, URL for YouTube or Vimeo, and a 1280 x 720 pixel PNG thumbnail.

Note

Your offer must meet the general commercial marketplace certification policies to be published to the commercial marketplace.

Additional sales opportunities

You can choose to opt into Microsoft-supported marketing and sales channels. When creating your offer in Partner Center, you will see two tabs toward the end of the process:

Next steps