In this article, we will review how to configure the PPM Express Resource Management report pack.
Before you proceed to the steps below, make sure you have the following:
- Computer with an Internet connection.
- PPM Express Resource Management report pack. Please download it from the PPM Express => Reporting => Download Resource Management Template link.
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.
Resource Management report pack configuration
To configure the PPM Express Resource Management Report Pack perform the following:
1. First, publishing or uploading the downloaded report pack to Power BI Service is required.
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 members of the team 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.
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.
Note: In this case, Power BI Service will add a report to the service and will create an empty Dashboard.
When the pack is uploaded to Power BI Service, you can open this pack at once. The pack contains demo data, and you can review the report pack in detail on the demo data first to get a full picture of how the pack works and what it includes.
2. Next, we need to configure the report Semantic model (former dataset) so it starts displaying your data.
For this purpose, we will open PPM Express => Reporting 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 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 the Power BI service Workspace where you have published the report, 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 PPMExpressODataUrl parameter.
Type in the first day of a week, e.g. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc. in the FirstDayOfWeek parameter. If not specified, Sunday is used as a default.
Click Apply.
5. Return to the PPM Express Report settings page.
To be able to access/query the OData service, 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 Resource Management 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.
Copy the created token and switch back to Power BI Settings for PPM Express Resource Management Pack page.
6. Open the Data source credentials section. Click on the OData => Edit credentials link.
Configure PPM Express Resource Management Report Pack menu will appear.
Paste the token copied from the PPM Express Report settings page to the Password field.
Select a Basic authentication method. Fill in the User name field with your user name.
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 PPM Express Resource Management Report Pack.
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 the 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.
Adding the report to PPM Express pages
PPM Express provides an ability to navigate to the reports from different PPM Express pages directly (Projects, Portfolio, Programs, Resources, Objectives, and Challenges).
To add your report to the required pages in PPM Express, it is required to 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 Resource Management Pack button.
On the Edit Report page 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 Save Report.
It is very important to provide a new report URL into the Report URL field and click Save Report after the update of PPM Express Power BI reports.
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.