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How to Add Power BI to SharePoint

Cody Schneider•

Want to share your dynamic Power BI reports with your team right where they work every day? Embedding them directly into your SharePoint Online pages eliminates the need for team members to switch contexts, keeping data accessible and actionable. This tutorial will walk you through exactly how to integrate your Power BI reports and dashboards into SharePoint for a seamless analytics experience.

Why Embed Power BI Reports in SharePoint?

Connecting Power BI and SharePoint moves your data from a separate analytics platform into the heart of your team's collaborative workspace. This small step has some big benefits for driving a data-informed culture.

  • Centralized Hub for Information: Your team likely already uses SharePoint as a hub for documents, project updates, and internal communications. Placing interactive reports on these same pages means everything they need - from project briefs to performance metrics - is in one place. No more hunting for links or logging into multiple platforms.

  • Data in Context: Reports are more powerful when they're viewed alongside related information. You can embed a sales performance report on the sales team's SharePoint page, a marketing campaign dashboard on the marketing portal, or project budget tracking right next to the project plan. This provides immediate context and helps people connect the data to their actual work.

  • Improved Collaboration: When a report is live on a shared page, it becomes a natural conversation piece. Team members can view the same up-to-date information, discuss trends they're seeing in the SharePoint comments, and make decisions collectively without needing to screen-share a report in a meeting.

  • Secure and Governed Access: The Power BI and SharePoint integration respects the security models of both platforms. You don't have to worry about data being exposed to the wrong people. If a user doesn't have permission to view a report in Power BI, they won't be able to see it on the SharePoint page either. It leverages your existing data governance rules automatically.

Prerequisites: What You Need First

Before you get started, let's quickly run through the short checklist of things you'll need to have in place. This will save you from hitting any roadblocks along the way.

  • License Requirements: To publish reports and create the embed link, you'll need a Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) license. Importantly, anyone who wants to view the embedded report on SharePoint will also need at least a Pro license to access the content. The report must be in a workspace (not your "My workspace") to share.

  • SharePoint Site and Permissions: You’ll need to be using modern SharePoint Online pages. The Power BI integration is built as a “web part” designed specifically for the modern experience. You also need to have at least "Member" level permissions (or higher) on the SharePoint site to edit pages and add web parts.

  • The Power BI Report: Make sure the report you want to share is published to the Power BI service (app.powerbi.com) and that you have sharing permissions for it.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Add a Power BI Report to SharePoint

The core of the process involves getting a special embed link from your Power BI report and pasting it into the designated Power BI web part on your SharePoint page. Here's how to do it in three simple stages.

Step 1: Get the Secure Embed Link from Power BI

First, you need the unique URL that is specifically designed for embedding in SharePoint. Using this link ensures that all your Power BI row-level security and user permissions are respected.

  1. Navigate to the Power BI service in your browser (app.powerbi.com) and open the report you want to embed.

  2. In the top menu, click on File > Embed report > SharePoint Online.

  3. A dialog box will appear with an embed link. This link is designed specifically for internal sharing within your organization. Copy this full URL to your clipboard.

Quick Note: It’s important to use the "SharePoint Online" option and not "Publish to web (public)." The public option makes your report accessible to anyone on the internet with the link, bypassing all security, which is rarely what you want for internal business data.

Step 2: Add the Power BI Web Part to Your SharePoint Page

Now, head over to your SharePoint site and locate the page where you want the report to appear. Once you're there:

  1. Click the Edit button in the top-right corner to put your SharePoint page into editing mode.

  2. Hover your mouse over the section where you want to add the report, and a small plus symbol `(+)' will appear. Click it.

  3. A menu of available web parts will pop up. In the search box, type "Power BI" and click on the Power BI icon to add it to your page section.

Step 3: Configure the Power BI Web Part

An empty Power BI block will now be on your page. The final step is to connect it to your report using the link you copied earlier.

  1. Click the Add report button inside the web part. This will open a configuration panel on the right side.

  2. In the configuration panel, you'll see a field labeled "Power BI report link." Paste the URL you copied from the Power BI service into this box.

  3. As soon as you paste the link, the report preview should load automatically within the SharePoint web part.

In this same panel, you have a few options to customize how the report appears:

  • Page name: If your report has multiple pages, you can enter the exact name of the page you want to be displayed by default. If you leave this blank, it will show the first page of the report.

  • Display options: You have toggles to show or hide the report's navigation pane (page tabs) and the entire filter pane. Hiding them can provide a cleaner, more focused view if users don't need to change pages or slice data.

  • Size: Choose an aspect ratio (like 16:9 for widescreen or 4:3 for standard) that best fits the report's design and your page layout. It's often best to match this to how the report was designed in Power BI Desktop.

Once you are happy with the settings, click Publish or Republish at the top right of your SharePoint page. That's it! Your interactive Power BI report is now live and fully functional within SharePoint.

Can You Embed a Power BI Dashboard in SharePoint?

Yes, but the process is slightly different and uses a more generic "Embed" web part instead of the specific Power BI one.

Unlike reports, dashboards in the Power BI service don't have a "SharePoint Online" embed option. But you can still embed them using a general iframe approach.

  1. Open the dashboard you wish to embed in the Power BI service.

  2. Find the "Share" button for that dashboard and copy its link.

  3. On your SharePoint page, enter edit mode and add a new web part. This time, search for and select the Embed web part (it usually has a <, > symbol).

  4. In the configuration pane, paste the dashboard URL into the field provided.

  5. SharePoint should automatically recognize the link and render your dashboard inside an embedded frame.

Be aware that this method may offer slightly less interactivity and control than the dedicated report web part, but it's a great workaround for displaying your high-level dashboard tiles directly in SharePoint.

Best Practices for a Great User Experience

To make your embedded reports even more useful, consider these final tips.

  • Use URL Filters for Context-Specific Views: This is a powerhouse feature. You can add a filter directly to the end of your embed link to pre-filter the report for a specific audience. For instance, if you have a page for the North American sales team, you can add a filter so the embedded report automatically displays only North American data. You add this to the URL string like so: &filter=TableName/FieldName eq 'Value' This small tweak makes the report instantly relevant.

  • Double-Check Permissions: The single most common issue is permissions. If a user reports seeing a blank box or an error message where the report should be, it almost always means they do not have permission to view that report in the Power BI service. Make sure the report is shared with the correct people or user groups.

  • Optimize Your Report for Performance: A report with a very large dataset or overly complex DAX measures can be slow to load - and that slowness will be noticeable on your SharePoint page. Before embedding, optimize your report in Power BI Desktop by reducing data size where possible, simplifying calculations, and using efficient visuals.

Final Thoughts

Integrating Power BI with SharePoint is a straightforward yet powerful way to bring critical data insights directly into your team's workflow. By embedding reports where collaboration already happens, you create a more efficient, informed, and data-driven environment for everyone.

We believe deeply in making data accessible. We built Graphed because we know that even navigating between tools like Power BI and SharePoint can add friction. When you consider that most teams' data is scattered across Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Shopify, and a CRM, the problem multiplies. Graphed connects to all your sales and marketing platforms, allowing you to create real-time dashboards and reports simply by describing what you need in plain English. It's like having an analyst who delivers exactly what you asked for in seconds.