Author: Stevie Wilson
Overview
Have you ever needed to make real-time updates directly within your Power BI reports? In this example, an IT team streamlines its daily standups by updating ticket request statuses on the spot—right inside the report. Learn how embedding a Power Apps canvas app into Power BI enables seamless, in-report data entry and updates.
Problem / Opportunity
During daily standup meetings, the IT team reviews a Power BI report that tracks open ticket requests. While the report provides valuable insights, team members often need to update ticket statuses in real time based on discussion—something Power BI doesn’t support out of the box. Switching between systems to make updates disrupts the flow of the meeting and introduces the risk of data entry delays or errors. This scenario presents an opportunity to enhance efficiency by integrating data interaction directly within the report.
Solution / Approach
In our example, users select a record from a table of all help desk tickets and click drill-through to get to the details page pictured below.
This page shows the selected ticket’s title and table of information on the left. On the right is an embedded canvas app where users can make real-time updates to the ticket’s information.
Using DirectQuery for Real-Time Updates
To show updates made via the app in real-time, you must connect to the data using DirectQuery. If you choose Import mode, you will still be able to use the writeback function, but any changes to the data will not be shown in the dashboard until the next time the semantic model is refreshed.
For the most seamless experience, build your report in Power BI Desktop, but do not add the canvas app visual here. Publish the report to Power BI Service, then add and configure the app visual from Service.
Configuring the Canvas App
To show updates made via the app in real-time, you must connect to the data using DirectQuery. If you choose Import mode, you will still be able to use the writeback function, but any changes to the data will not be shown in the dashboard until the next time the semantic model is refreshed.
To set up the canvas app from Power BI Service:
1. From your published report in Service, click Edit.
2. Insert the Power Apps for Power BI visual and resize/reposition as needed.
3. Add any fields you want to include in your app into the PowerApps Data well. For my example, I want to be able to update the Status, Category, Priority, and Working Notes columns from my app. Also add your unique identifier column (ID in my case).
4. If you have already created your canvas app and simply want to embed it, click Choose App. Otherwise, click Create new to design your canvas app. Click OK on the Open Browser dialogue and the Power Apps studio will open in a new tab. I’m clicking Create New. Choose Go to Power Apps studio to design your canvas app.
5. Add any necessary controls to your app. I added text controls for titles for each field, 3 dropdown controls (for Status, Priority, and Category), a text input control (for Working Notes), and a button to submit the updates.
6. Add your data source (in my case, the Dataverse table where the help desk tickets are stored) to your app so you can reference it when we configure the Submit button. In the left navigation, click the Data icon, then click Add data and find your source.
7. Now we need to have the 3 drop downs, and 1 text input field show the data for the record currently selected in your Power BI report. Set the specified property of each control as listed below.
a. For each dropdown control, set the Items property to pull in the Choice field from your data source. For example, for the Request Status dropdown:
b. Also, for each dropdown control, set the Default property to pull in the current value for that record. For example, for the Request Status dropdown:
c. For the text input control for Working Notes, set the Default property to:
8. Configure the submit button control. Change its Text property to “Submit Changes”. Update the Onselect property with code that writes any changes back to the data source, displays a notification message, and refreshes the integration with Power BI. For example:
9. Save and publish your app. Close Power Apps studio and return to Power BI. Your app should now allow you to make real-time changes to the data source that are immediately reflected in the dashboard.
Security and Access
To ensure that users can interact with both the dashboard and the app:
1. Set up access to your Power BI report as you normally would.
2. Make sure any users who will be writing back to the data source have the appropriate permissions to do so. In our example, this is managed with a Dataverse security role.
3. Share the canvas app users:
a. From the report in Power BI Service, click Edit in the top ribbon.
b. Select the Power Apps visual, then click the ellipses and select Edit to open the canvas app.
c. Click the Share icon in the top right.
d. Enter any users to share the app with, then click Share at the bottom.
Results / Impact
By embedding a canvas app into the Power BI report, the IT team was able to update ticket statuses in real time during daily standups, eliminating the need to switch between systems. This streamlined their workflow, reduced manual entry errors, and saved time previously spent reconciling data after meetings. The integrated solution also laid the foundation for additional writeback use cases, such as capturing notes directly within the report.
