Can Power BI Send Automated Emails?

Trying to set up automated emails from Power BI can feel a bit confusing at first, but the short answer is yes, you can absolutely do it. Whether you want to send a simple daily dashboard update or trigger a custom alert when a specific business number is hit, Power BI has a few ways to get it done. This guide will walk you through the most effective methods, from the simple built-in subscription feature to more powerful, data-driven automations using Power Automate.

Start Simple: Power BI's Built-in Email Subscriptions

The most straightforward way to send automated emails is by using the native "Subscribe" feature right within the Power BI Service. This method is perfect for sending simple, scheduled snapshots of your reports or dashboards to yourself and your team. Think of it as a daily or weekly digest of your most important charts.

It's an excellent choice for keeping stakeholders informed with a regular overview of performance without requiring them to log into Power BI themselves. The email they receive includes a preview image of the report and a direct link to view it live in the Power BI Service.

How to Set Up a Report Subscription

Creating a subscription takes less than a minute. Here’s a quick step-by-step guide:

1. Navigate to the report or dashboard you want to share in your Power BI workspace (this must be done in the web-based Power BI Service, not the Desktop app).
2. In the top menu bar, click the Subscribe icon (it looks like an envelope).
3. Select Add new subscription. A settings panel will appear on the right side of your screen.
4. Configure your settings: Here, you can customize the email.
5. Click Save and close. Your automated email report is now active!

Limitations of Basic Subscriptions

While extremely convenient for regular check-ins, this built-in method has some limitations you should know about:

• It’s not conditional: The email sends based on a fixed schedule, not because of a change in your data. It will send whether sales are up, down, or flat.
• It's a static image: The email contains a static image of your report. It's not a live, interactive report inside the inbox.
• License Requirements: You'll need a Power BI Pro or PPU license to subscribe others. Recipients will also need a Pro or PPU license to view the report itself unless the content is hosted in a Power BI Premium capacity.
• Frequency Caps: You can only schedule up to 24 subscriptions per day per report or dashboard.

For simple check-ins and high-level updates, subscriptions are perfect. But if you need to be notified based on what your data is actually doing, it’s time to bring in a powerful companion tool: Power Automate.

Level Up: Data-Driven Alerts with Power Automate

What if you only want an email when a specific KPI crosses a certain line? For instance, maybe you need an alert when inventory levels fall below a critical threshold, expenses go over budget, or customer satisfaction scores drop. This is where you move from scheduled reporting to data-driven alerts.

Power BI lets you set alerts on certain visuals (like KPIs, gauges, and card visuals) in your dashboards. When the data in that visual meets the condition you've set, it can trigger a flow in Power Automate to send a fully customized email.

Step 1: Create a Data Alert in Power BI

First, you need to set up the trigger inside your Power BI dashboard. (Note: Data alerts can only be set on Dashboard tiles, not visuals within a Report itself. You may need to pin your visual from a report to a dashboard first.)

1. Go to a dashboard in the Power BI Service and find a card, KPI, or gauge visual.
2. Hover over the tile, click the three-dot menu (…), and select Manage alerts.
3. Click + Add alert rule. The settings panel will appear.
4. Give your alert a title. For example, "Daily Sales Below Target."
5. Set the Condition and Threshold. For instance, Condition: Below, Threshold: 5000.
6. Set the notification frequency (e.g., at most every hour). You can also choose to have Power BI send you a default notification, but we're going to create a custom one with Power Automate.

Step 2: Build the Email Flow in Power Automate

Now, let’s hop over to Power Automate to build the engine that sends the email when the alert is triggered.

1. Go to Power Automate and click Create on the left-hand menu. Select Automated cloud flow.
2. Give your flow a name, like "Power BI Sales Alert Email."
3. In the "Choose your flow's trigger" search box, type "Power BI" and select the trigger named When a data-driven alert is triggered. Click Create.
4. In the trigger step, you'll need to select the Alert ID from a dropdown list. This list is populated with all the alerts you've created in your Power BI account. Find the "Daily Sales Below Target" alert you just made.
5. Click + New step. Search for "Outlook" (or your preferred email service like Gmail) and select the action Send an email (V2).
6. Now you can create your custom email. This is where it gets powerful! In the To, Subject, and Body fields, you can use dynamic content from the Power BI alert trigger.
7. Click Save. Your conditional email alerting system is ready! Any time a new sales figure syncs to your report and is below $5,000, your Power Automate flow will run and send that detailed email notification.

The Pro Method: Emailing Full PDF Reports Based on Data Conditions

So, we've covered scheduled reports and alerts on a single number. But what if you need the ultimate combination: automatically sending a full, multi-page report as a PDF, but only when a certain condition is met?

This is the most advanced and flexible method, and it relies entirely on a slightly more complex Power Automate flow. It's the perfect solution for scenarios like:

• Sending a weekly regional performance rundown to a manager, but only if that region missed its sales quota.
• Emailing a project budget report to finance, but only when costs exceed 80% of the total budget.
• Notifying the marketing team with a full campaign analysis report if ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) drops below a specific level.

How This Advanced Flow Works

This flow involves a few more moving parts, but the logic is straightforward: schedule a check, get the data, see if it meets the condition, and if it does, generate and send the report.

1. Recurrence Trigger: Instead of a Power BI trigger, this flow starts with a Schedule trigger in Power Automate. Set it to run daily, weekly, or whenever you need to check the data.
2. Run a Query: Next, add the Power BI action Run a query against a dataset. This is where you tell the flow what number to check. You'll need to write a very simple DAX query to get the value. For example, to get total sales, your query might look like this:
3. Condition Step: Add a Condition control. Check if the value from the previous query step is below your target (e.g., "is less than 50000"). This creates two branches in your flow: "If yes" and "If no."
4. "If yes" Branch: If the condition is true, this branch will execute.

The "If no" branch remains empty. If the condition is false, nothing happens and the flow simply finishes.

This method gives you complete control over your reporting automation, allowing you to build an intelligent system that only delivers information when it's genuinely needed, saving your team from inbox fatigue.

Which Method Should You Choose?

Deciding on the right approach comes down to your specific needs. Here's a simple breakdown:

• Power BI Subscriptions: Best for routine, scheduled updates. It's about keeping everyone on the same page with consistent, high-level reporting on a fixed cadence. Low effort, great for visibility.
• Data Alerts + Power Automate: Best for immediate, single-KPI notifications. It's about knowing the exact moment a critical number changes so you can react quickly. Medium effort, great for proactive management.
• Advanced Conditional Flows in Power Automate: Best for comprehensive, condition-based reporting. This is for when specific business events require a full, detailed report for closer analysis. Higher effort, but provides the most power and flexibility.

Final Thoughts

Power BI offers a fantastic range of options for automating emails, moving far beyond simple scheduled reports. By combining the native subscription feature with the flexibility of Power Automate, you can create a reporting system that actively notifies you about what's happening in your business, saving valuable time and ensuring you never miss a critical insight.

Setting up complex flows in Power Automate or bringing multiple data sources together can sometimes be a challenge. We built Graphed to remove that complexity by letting you connect all of your marketing and sales data sources in seconds and create dashboards using simple language. Instead of building multi-step alert flows, you get always-on, live dashboards that keep everything updated in one place, allowing you to focus on insights, not setup.