In this article, we will review how to configure the PPM Express Power BI pack for the Core subscription plan. When you configure this report pack, you will be able to review the reports for your Portfolios, Projects, Key Dates, Issues, Risks, PPM Express Tasks.
Resource Management functionality is out of the scope of the PPM Express Core report pack. This functionality is available in the PPM Express Professional and Enterprise subscription plans (Advanced Power BI Report Pack).
Before you proceed to the steps below make sure you have the following:
- Computer with an Internet connection.
- PPM Express Core report pack. Please download it by this link:
PPM Express Core Pack.pbix
This file contains demo data that you can use to review the report and its functionality if needed. - Registered Power BI account in the Power BI service.
Core report pack configuration
To configure PPM Express Core Report Pack perform the following:
1. First, it is required to publish or upload the downloaded report to Power BI Service.
Please note: We recommend creating a new workspace for this report and publishing/uploading it to a newly created workspace or to the workspace where the main PPM Express pack was published.
The report can be added to Power BI Service either using the Power BI Desktop app or via Power BI Service. Please select the way that works better for you:
- Open the downloaded file in Power BI Desktop and publish it. For instructions on how to publish Power BI reports, please refer to Microsoft documentation.
- Open Power BI Service, navigate to the required workspace, and select Upload => Browse.
Please note: If you are using Power BI Pro we do not recommend publishing the report to 'My Workspace'. It is recommended to publish the report to a newly created workspace or to any other workspace that you have besides 'My Workspace'. In this way, you will be able to share the report with other team members and navigate to the reports from PPM Express. If you publish the report to 'My Workspace' (in case you are not using Power BI Pro), it won't be possible to share it with other team members, and you will be the only user who can navigate to the report from PPM Express.
2. After publishing/uploading the report, we need to configure its Semantic model (former dataset).
For this purpose, we will open PPM Express => Reporting settings first.
PPM Express has an open protocol that allows querying data - PPM Express OData.
Navigate to the PPM Express Report Settings page. In the Report Settings, you can find the OData feed URL – this is a URL link to PPM Express instance OData that you can use to connect to PPM Express OData.
Copy the URL from the OData feed URL field.
3. Open Power BI service Workspace where you have published the report, and navigate to the published Semantic model (former dataset), click on the ellipsis, and choose Settings.
4. On the Settings for the published Semantic model (former dataset) page, open the Parameters section and paste the OData URL to the PathToPPMX parameter.
ODataFeedsContainAllFields parameter is optional and is used only for cases when it is required to include the custom fields from PPM Express pages to the reports.
Please note: We recommend leaving this parameter empty while configuring your reports in the Power BI service. Changes to the report Data Model can only be done in Power BI Desktop. That is why changes in the parameter will only take effect if the needed feeds are provided in the ODataFeedsContainAllFields parameter in Power BI Desktop and the refresh operation is performed in Power BI Desktop. For detailed instructions on how to include custom fields in the report Data Model, please refer to this article.
Click Apply.
Please note: Power BI service stores credentials used to configure PPM Express reports. Suppose you have already configured any other PPM Express pack using the same OData URL, and you have established a connection using the PPM Express token. In that case, the next few steps can be skipped, and you can proceed to set up the Automated data refresh (step number 8).
5. Return to the PPM Express Report settings page.
To be able to create reports, a password is required. In PPM Express, you can create a token that can be used as a password.
To create a token for the Core report, perform the following actions:
Click Create access token under the OData feed URL.
Click the Generate Token button;
Copy the token.
Make sure you copy the above token now. We don't store it and you will not be able to see it again.
Please note: Once the token is revoked, it cannot be restored.
Copy the created token and switch back to Power BI Settings for PPM Express Core Pack page.
6. Open the Data source credentials section. Click on OData => Edit credentials link.
Configure PPM Express Core Report Pack menu will appear.
Paste the token copied from the PPM Express Report settings page to the Password field.
Fill in the User name field with any user name.
Please make sure to select a Basic authentication method. Click Sign in.
7. Next, we need to establish a connection to the Web. By establishing a connection to the Web, we ensure that the latest version of the report pack will be available for download.
Click on the Web => Edit credentials link.
Select an Anonymous authentication method and Organizational privacy level. Click Sign in.
8. It is recommended to set up the Automated Data Refresh at once so that the latest data is displayed for the report. For this click Scheduled Refresh in the Settings for PPMX.
In the Keep your data up to date section toggle the switch to On.
You can also choose the Refresh Frequency, Time Zone, and Time when refresh will take place.
Click Apply once you are done.
Also, it is recommended to launch data synchronization for the report at once, so it starts displaying data for the report. For this purpose, open the Workspace where you have published the report, and navigate to the published Semantic model (former dataset), and click the Refresh button.
Please note: If you have received a notification that the PPM Express Team updated Power BI Reports, you can download the latest version and configure reports once again by following the steps in this article to stay up to date and use the updated reports.
Adding Core report to PPM Express pages
PPM Express provides the ability to add custom reports to the Report Settings page and to navigate to the reports from different PPM Express pages directly (Projects, Portfolio, Programs, Resources, Objectives, and Challenges).
Please note: Core pack reports are not available from the project/portfolio/program sections, only from the 'Reports' button on the PPM Expres pages.
To add your report to the required pages in PPM Express, it is required to add the Core report pack as a custom report to PPM Express and provide the report home page URL to PPM Express. If you select to open any PPM Express report from these pages, the Power BI service will be opened in a new tab, and information for the selected report will be displayed.
Navigate to the published PPM Express report in Power BI, open its Home page, and copy its URL excluding the /ReportSection part.
It is important because you publish a report file using your own Power BI account. The published report resides in the workspace of the account you used. To let the PPM Express App navigate to the published report in the Power BI service, the PPM Express App has to be aware of the report URL address.
Return to the PPM Express Reports Settings page and click on the New Custom Report button.
On the New Report page, type in the name of your report and paste the report URL into the Report URL field.
In the Scope field select the PPM Express pages where this report will become available.
Click Create Custom Report.
The report will become available on the Report Settings page and other PPM Express pages you selected in the Scope field.
Now it can be accessed from PPM Express pages directly.
If you need to export the report, we recommend exporting it to PDF first: Export => PDF.
If you click File => Print this page instead, please enable the 'Background graphics' checkbox in the print preview dialog to get all the boxes to appear and include colors.