Use Business Central as a data source in Power BI

  • 6 minutes

Once you have Power BI Desktop installed, you can use it to import data from Business Central.

To add Business Central as a data source in Power BI Desktop, follow these steps:

  1. In Power BI Desktop, in the left navigation pane, select Get Data.

  2. On the Get Data page, select Online Services, select Dynamics 365 Business Central, and then select the Connect button.

    Screenshot of the Get Data window with Online Service, Business Central selected.

  3. Power BI displays a wizard that guides you through the connection process, including signing into Business Central. Select Sign in, and then select the relevant account. You should use the same account that you sign into Business Central with.

    Screenshot of the wizard to sign into Business Central.

    Once you've successfully connected to Business Central, you aren't prompted again to sign in.

  4. Select the Connect button to continue.

  5. The Power BI wizard shows a list of Business Central environments, companies, and data sources. These data sources represent all the APIs and web services that you have access to in Business Central. The modern Business Central APIs include both the built-in APIs v2.0 provided with Business Central and custom APIs created by partners or developers. So customers and partners have access to better and faster data analytics in Power BI.

  6. The Navigator window displays these data sources.

    Screenshot showing an example of data sources.

  7. Expand the Advanced APIs, Standard APIs or Web Services.

  8. The Power BI wizard shows a list of Business Central environments, companies, and data sources. These data sources represent all the web services that you've published from Business Central. The Navigator window displays these data sources.

    Screenshot of the Navigator window with data sources.

  9. Specify the data you want to add to your data model, and then select the Load or Transform Data button.

  10. Repeat the previous steps to add more Business Central, or other data, to your Power BI data model.

Once the data is loaded, you can see it in the right navigation on the page. You've successfully connected to your Business Central data, and you can begin building your Power BI report.

However, sometimes you require data for your Power BI report that might not be (by default) available in Business Central. In that case, you need to add datasets.

You can add datasets in the following four ways:

  • Query Objects

  • Page Objects

  • API Query objects

  • API Page objects