Lydon Solutions

Construction Project Management Software Solutions

Power BI

Create Power BI Reports from Lists in Microsoft 365

How-To |

Quickly create business intelligence reports in Power BI using your Microsoft SharePoint list schema and data with Microsoft's new guided authoring experience. 

Regular readers will know that we are big proponents of SharePoint and the utility of Microsoft Power BI, so we were pleasantly surprised by the new functionality allowing the creation of a Power BI report from a SharePoint list.  Microsoft's new guided authoring experience will let you create a formatted Power BI report from your list schema and data in just a couple of clicks. This new Power BI functionality is available for the Microsoft 365 standalone lists app and SharePoint Lists.

Since our project management information system, Construction Viz, utilizes SharePoint lists, this is an excellent addition to our feature set (see screenshots below).

To take further advantage of Power BI's advanced data visualization capabilities, go into Edit mode. Once a report is saved and published, it will appear in the same submenu under Integrate > Power BI.

Note: Users with a Microsoft 365 E5 license or Power BI Pro license will have the complete report authoring and viewing experience.

Easily create a Power BI report in Construction Viz SharePoint Daily Report List app
Easily create a Power BI report in Construction Viz SharePoint Daily Report List app
Power BI Report generated from Construction Viz SharePoint Daily Report List
Power BI Report generated from Construction Viz SharePoint Daily Report List

Lydon Solutions provides turnkey Microsoft 365 solutions for the construction industry. If you need help building or editing Microsoft Power BI reports, check out our managed services. If you need an enterprise project management information system for Microsoft 365, complete with reporting, check out Construction Viz.

Microsoft Power BI and Paginated Reports for Construction

Microsoft News |

As your construction organization moves to Microsoft 365, the question of how to report on all your data becomes critical. Microsoft 365’s de facto reporting solution is Power BI. It is the one-stop-shop for reporting on data generated in Microsoft’s expansive cloud platform as well as external applications.

Microsoft Power BI is known as a robust dashboard report builder. It can connect to many different data sets and applications to build stunning dashboards and KPIs that can be displayed on any device. Microsoft continually enhances Power BI with functionality and integration capabilities and puts that power in the hands of the users. This helps to make it a prime reporting solution on the market today.

While Power BI can publish SQL Server paginated reports, it did not provide the option to create paginated reports until recently when Microsoft released a new desktop Power BI Report application.

So, What are Paginated Reports and How Would I Use Them in Construction?

Paginated reports can be extensively formatted, can fit one or more pages, and are designed to be easily printed. In construction, they are great for printing a formatted form (eg. Submittal Form):

Or data logs with multiple pages (eg. Submittal Log):

Get Started with Power BI and Create Paginated Reports

To get started with creating paginated reports in Power BI, you will need a Power BI Premium license and you must download and install the Power BI Report Builder software. Please be aware that Power BI Premium is expensive. Before you consider Power BI for paginated reports, we recommend reaching out to Microsoft to understand licensing requirements. There are also some settings required in your Power BI service that will be needed. We would recommend doing an internet search on Microsoft Power BI Paginated Reports for step by step instructions as these might change.

See Microsoft’s FAQs for Power BI Paginated Reports for more information.

Lastly, to build effective reports, you will need to have a good understanding of where your information (ie. data sets) resides in your topography. We would recommend that you start mapping out your data sets sooner rather than later to ensure power users all create reports using the same structured data.

Get Reporting Expertise from Lydon Solutions

Having the ability to create paginated reports in Power BI is a great feature. Lydon Solutions has been building SQL Server Reports (SSRS) and Power BI reports for construction for many years. If you have any questions or need help building SQL Server or Power BI reports, you can get a free consultation to talk with our team of experts. If you need an enterprise construction management PMIS that can be deployed into Microsoft 365, complete with reporting, or get a demo of our easy-to-use project management software solution, Construction Viz.