How to Create a Data Entry Form in Power BI

Sometimes your data tells most of the story, but you need to add that last little bit of context yourself. While Power BI is incredible at visualizing data from other sources, you can also build a simple data entry form directly inside your report. This guide will walk you through exactly how to create a write-back form using Power Apps, allowing you and your team to add data like notes, forecasts, or status updates right from the dashboard.

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Why Would You Need a Data Entry Form in Power BI?

Before diving into the "how," let's quickly touch on the "why." You might think, "Can't I just add this data to the source spreadsheet?" And you definitely can, but embedding a form directly in your report creates a much more seamless experience for several common scenarios:

• Capturing Commentary and Notes: Imagine looking at a sales chart and wanting to add a quick note about why a particular month was so high. Instead of navigating away to a different file, you can type your note right beside the visual.
• Gathering Forecasts or Targets: Allow your sales team to enter their quarterly sales projections directly into a shared sales dashboard. This keeps the data centralized and immediately visible.
• Updating Project or Task Statuses: A project management dashboard can become interactive. Team members can update a project's status from "In Progress" to "Complete" via a simple dropdown in the form, and the report visuals will update automatically on the next refresh.
• Simple "What-If" Scenarios: You can create fields to input different variables (like a marketing budget or lead conversion rate) and see how your report visuals change, helping you make data-driven decisions on the fly.

The key benefit is keeping your users in the context of the data. By bringing the entry form into the report, you reduce friction and encourage a more active, data-engaged culture.

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The Easiest Method: Leveraging Power Apps

The native, Microsoft-approved way to add a data entry form into Power BI is by using the Power Apps visual. Don't let the name intimidate you if you've never used it. Power Apps is a tool for building simple "low-code" applications, and for this task, you only need to use a very basic version of its capabilities.

Here’s the high-level workflow:

1. We'll create a simple data source to store our new entries. A SharePoint List is perfect for this, as it's easy to set up and works flawlessly with the Power Platform.
2. We will embed a Power Apps visual into our Power BI report.
3. Inside Power BI, we'll design a very simple form within Power Apps that connects to our SharePoint List.
4. Your report users will then be able to fill out the form, hit "submit," and their data will be sent to the SharePoint List. Your Power BI report will then reflect these changes after its next scheduled refresh.

Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your Data Entry Form

Let's build a practical example: a form to capture notes on regional sales performance. Users will be able to select a region from our report and add a comment about its performance that month.

Step 1: Prepare Your Data Source (A SharePoint List)

First, you need a place for your form data to live. A SharePoint List is essentially a simple, cloud-based table that's ideal for this purpose.

• Navigate to your company's SharePoint site. If you don't have one, you can create one through your Office 365 portal.
• Click + New and select List.
• Choose Blank list. Give it a descriptive name like "Sales Report Commentary" and a description. Click Create.
• Your list starts with a "Title" column. Let's add the fields we need. Click + Add column and add the following:

That's it! Your backend data source is now ready to receive data.

Step 2: Add the Power Apps Visual in Power BI Desktop

Now open your Power BI report.

• In the Visualizations pane on the right, look for the Power Apps icon (it's often near the bottom with a purple logo). Click on it to add the visual to your report canvas.
• Resize and position it where you want the form to appear.
• Next, we need to pass data from Power BI to the app so the form knows what context it's in. In our example, we want to know which region is selected in the report. From your Fields pane, drag the Region field (or whatever field you want to use for context) into the "Power Apps data" well for the visual.

Step 3: Create a New Power App

With the Power Apps visual selected, you'll see a button prompting you to choose an environment and an app. Follow these steps:

• Select your company's Power Apps environment (usually just one option is available).
• Click Create new to launch the Power Apps Studio directly within a window on top of Power BI. You're now building your app!

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Step 4: Connect the App to Your SharePoint List

The first thing Power Apps will do is create a basic gallery showing the data you passed into it (in our case, the list of regions). We don't need this gallery for a simple entry form, so you can select it on the left-hand Tree View pane and delete it.

Now, let's connect our app to the SharePoint List we created earlier:

• In the left-hand menu, click on the database icon (Data).
• Click + Add data.
• Search for "SharePoint" and select the connector.
• Choose your SharePoint site from the list, then select the "Sales Report Commentary" list you created. Click Connect.

Step 5: Design the Form

It's time to build the actual input form. We'll use a pre-built control to make this fast.

• From the + Insert menu at the top, select Edit form.
• Resize the form a bit on the canvas so it's easy to see.
• With the form selected, go to the Properties pane on the right.
• Notice the Region field in the form. We want this to autopopulate based on what the user has selected in the Power BI report.

Step 6: Add a Submit Button

Your form needs a button to submit the data.

• From the + Insert menu, select Button.
• Position it at the bottom of your form. In the properties pane, change its Text property to "Submit Comment."
• The most important property is OnSelect - this defines what happens when the button is clicked. Select the button, go to the OnSelect property in the formula bar at the top, and enter this formula:

SubmitForm(Form1), Notify("Comment saved!", NotificationType.Success), ResetForm(Form1)

Let's break that down:

• SubmitForm(Form1): This is the core function. It takes all the data currently in Form1 and sends it to the SharePoint List.
• Notify("Comment saved!", NotificationType.Success): This is a user-friendly touch. It pops up a green success banner at the top of the app to confirm the data was sent.
• ResetForm(Form1): This clears out the form's fields, getting it ready for the next entry.

Step 7: Save and Publish the App

Your simple app is now functional. To make it visible in your Power BI report, you must save and publish it.

• Click File -> Save. Give your app a name, like "Sales Commentary Form," and click Save.
• A blue "Publish" button will appear. Click it, then click Publish this version.
• You can now close the Power Apps Studio window.

Back in Power BI Desktop, you'll see your shiny new form embedded directly in your report. You can start using it immediately - filter to a region, type a comment, and hit submit.

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Step 8: Refresh Your Report to See the Data

You’ve submitted data through the form, and it's now sitting in your SharePoint list. But it won't appear in your Power BI visuals until your dataset refreshes.

You'll need to add your SharePoint List as a data source to your Power BI report and then set up a scheduled refresh in the Power BI Service. Once the dataset refreshes, any new entries will be pulled in and appear in your charts and tables.

Final Thoughts

Creating a data entry form directly within Power BI opens up a powerful new avenue for interaction. By using a Power Apps visual connected to a SharePoint list, you can enable your teams to add commentary, update statuses, or input forecasts right where a dashboard is consumed. This keeps team members engaged and makes the data more comprehensive and actionable.

While using Power Apps in Power BI is a fantastic way to handle manual input, our goal at Graphed is often to remove the need for manual reporting altogether. We believe analytics should be automated and instantaneous. By connecting directly to your live marketing and sales platforms - like Google Analytics, Salesforce, or Shopify - our AI data analyst creates real-time dashboards based on what's happening right now. With Graphed, you can ask questions in plain English and get answers in seconds, freeing you from building complex forms or manually stitching data together.