Microsoft Dynamics GP and Power BI: An Introduction

If you’re not familiar with it, Power BI is a powerful data analytics tool that helps you turn raw data into insights you can see. You can use it to drill deep into your data to find new information and connections. Or, to create a dashboard that brings all the metrics most important to you to the forefront. The choice is yours. Even if your data lives in many places, Power BI can help you bring it all together.
 

Learn more about Power BI and what it can do in this quick 90 second video

Now you have a better understanding of what Power BI is and how you can use it, you’re probably excited to see what nuggets of knowledge you will unearth in your Dynamics GP data. It’s true Microsoft Dynamics GP and Power BI are powerful tools separately, but when you bring them together, you begin to see your business data in a whole new light.

Dynamics GP Content Pack for Power BI

One of the easiest ways to get started is by using the Power BI content pack for Dynamics GP 2018. With this content pack, you’ll get instant access to a variety of professionally designed reports. That way, you can focus on digging into the data and looking for insights, rather than on designing the report itself. A few of the reports included in the Dynamics GP content for Power BI are:

• Sales
• Inventory
• Purchasing
• Financials

Choose a report that is most relevant to your role for instant insight. To give you accurate, useful information, each report in the content pack is built on the relationships that already exist between the relevant tables in your Dynamics GP database.

The reports also go far beyond raw data and include several filters and calculated columns to help give your analysis a jumpstart. These include:

• Net debit/credit
• Sales figures calculated by item
• Profit

And more.

Want to try it out? Here are some instructions on how to get started.

While this content pack is a great starting point for Power BI beginners, it’s important to note, it is currently only supported in Dynamics GP 2018 or later, and it only scratches the surface of what these two programs can do together. If you want to learn more about how you can use Dynamics GP and Power BI to take your data analysis to the next level, here are some more helpful tutorials.

• Getting started with Dynamics GP and Power BI
• How to set up OData feeds from Dynamics GP to pull data into Power BI
• Power BI guided learning
• Creating a sales report in Power BI using Dynamics GP data.

We hope you find these links helpful and enjoy digging deeper into your data with Power BI. As they say, knowledge is power. You never know, the next insight you dig up might just revolutionize your business.

Should you find yourself in need of custom Dynamics GP reporting, contact us. Our experts have over 25 years’ experience with Dynamics GP and its many other reporting tools, including SSRS and SmartList. Let us help you find the insights you’ve been looking for.