Getting Started with Web-Based Power BI Reports
Access and Permissions
To begin using CSU's web-based Power BI reports you need:
- An active CSU NetID
- Permissions to one or more CSU's data domains (finance, HR, student, directory, etc.)
- You can check your access to CSU data through the Data Access Request application. Once logged in, select the HISTORY button to see your approvals.
- If you wish to request access to CSU data, you can submit a request through the same Data Access Request linked above. Simply click the checkbox for the data domain you wish to access, then click submit.
- You can track the status of your request through the PENDING button in the Data Access Request application.
- Permissions to one or more Fabric Workspaces.
- For Division of IT managed Workspaces, this is built into the Data Access Request process above (and the PDAR process). Once you're given access to a specific data domain, the corresponding Fabric Workspace will be available to you also.
- For departmental Workspaces, please contact the Workspace administrator, likely your departmental IT unit.
Getting Started with Power BI
Here's a Power BI Tutorial for Beginners (2024) that is helpful for a jumpstart. It includes
- Intro (0:00)
- Installing Power BI (0:30) *
- Preview Features (1:39)
- Get Data (2:50) *
- Transform Data (4:38)
- Data Modelling (7:42)
- Add Calculations (10:21)
- Visualize Data (12:37)
- AI Visuals (14:29)
- Custom Visuals (16:15)
- Publish and Share (17:12)
- Using Copilot (18:26)
If you're wanting to connect to an Oracle database (ODS, etc.), here's an article that covers installing the Oracle Client for Microsoft Tools.
Navigating Power BI Reports
Microsoft has created documentation on how to navigate Fabric and use Power BI reports at the links below.
Navigating Power BI Paginated Reports (Similar to WebFOCUS Reports)
Article on paginated reports in the Power BI service. Topics include:
- What is a paginated report?
- How do paginated reports work?
- Interact with a paginated report
- Print a paginated reports
- Navigate the paginated report
- Export the paginated report
- Subscribe to the paginated report (Excel output)
- Considerations and troubleshooting
Introduction to Power BI Interactive Reports:
Article on Power BI Interactive reports. Topics include:
- The parts of a report
- Advantages of reports
- Safely interact with content
- Save your changes or revert to the default settings
- Dashboards vs. reports
Navigation for Interactive Reports:
Tutorial on getting around in Power BI service. Topics include:
- Prerequisites
- Open the Power BI Service (app.fabric.microsoft.com)
- View workspace content
- Open a dashboard and a report
- Using the left navigation pane
- Browse
- Open Apps
- Open the learning center
- Search and sort content
- Find the owner
- Clean up resources
Creating a Subscription
Power BI reports published in Fabric allow you to create a subscription. Within subscriptions you have two options. You can create a subscription with one set of parameter selections and a target audience. Or, you can create a dynamic subscription for a report. A dynamic subscription allows you to send the report to multiple target audiences with a different set of parameter selections for each target group. The process for creating a simple and dynamic report subscriptions is documented by Microsoft at the links below.
Information for creating a subscription to a report is available at the link below.
When creating subscriptions to share data with others, please be mindful of the sensitivity of the data you're sharing. Does it contain PII - Personally Identifiable Information. Do FERPA or HIPAA rules apply? Please refer to the CSU Policy library is available at https://policylibrary.colostate.edu/ . There may be multiple policies that apply to you. At a minimum, refer to the Central Administrative Data Governance policy.
On the topic of security, email is an insecure method to transmit data. Using PowerAutomate, you can target a OneDrive or Sharepoint location with your subscription instead of an inbox. That's outside the scope of this article but you can find more information by searching on PowerAutomate and Power BI.
Article on email subscriptions for reports and dashboards in the Power BI service
For questions or support requests, please contact the Data Warehouse team at, doit_data_warehouse@colostate.edu