Getting Started

Creating a new playlist on PowerBI Robots

General: To schedule automatic screenshots with PowerBI Robots, go to the web agent and click “Playlist” on the side menu. From here, you will be able to create new automation playlists, as well as search and access previous ones.

To start a new automation playlist, click the “Create” button. On the first tab (“General”), name the playlist, and choose the screenshot output format (image, single or multiple PDFs, single or multiple Excel files). Then, set the screen-capture recurrence (i.e. your data’s refresh rate) and how you want your data delivered (“Send to”).

Recipients:

After choosing your sending method, click the “Recipients” tab to fill in your data recipients:

Keep in mind that this tab is only available when you select Email, SharePoint, or File System as your delivery method. Since one of PowerBI Robots‘ biggest advantages is the ability to share PowerBI reports with people outside your organization, you may add any emails or SharePoint libraries to your recipients. Just make sure you have the proper authorization to do it.

You can add new columns next to the mandatory name and email fields. Each new category will be available as a token wherever it can be used.

Adding Power BI reports, dashboards, and visuals to your playlist

Once you’re done, click “next” and proceed to the “Visuals” tab. Click “Add Power BI account” and a screen displaying your Power BI workspaces will pop up. You may see all reports and dashboards contained on each by clicking the plus sign. Check the boxes to select which report pages and individual tiles you wish to send (alternatively, select them all). Select which data you wish to send and what filters you want to apply. If you need further instructions on how to do this, check section “3 – Personalizing a playlist on PowerBI Robots”.

All selected dashboards and reports are displayed on the left of the screen, under the “Search” bar. You can change the title, set the size, and apply report and page-level filters to any reports by clicking the icon next to each PBI Url field. After selecting the Power BI dashboards and reports to add to your playlist, click “Create” to finish creating your playlist.

If, instead of creating a new playlist from scratch, you wish to duplicate one, click the Actions button from the Playlists screen and select Duplicate from the dropdown menu.

A playlist copy keeps all elements from the original one, including reports, recipients, and filters. Keep this in mind when creating playlists using this method.

You must now install and configure the PowerBI Robots agent to synchronize your playlists.

Integrated Login into PowerBI

Our solution only works after a correct login to your Power BI account. To do so click on the “Add Power BI Visual” button and authenticate with your PowerBI credentials to continue. After signing in, you should be ready to start using PowerBI Robots and add Power BI DashBoards or/and reports into your playlist.

Add Power BI Visuals

You can easily embed visuals, dashboards and report pages into playlists by following the next steps

1. Click the Add Power BI Visuals button

2. A new window will open where you can navigate through you PowerBI items and once you select any item you will see a preview of that tile or report.

3. If you select any report, you will get access to all pages of that report and you can select them individually.

4. To add an item:

   • Check the respective checkbox

   • Click the "Add" button

Filter Reports and Pages

PowerBI Robots allows you to filter your visuals using report and page filters. After this, all updates will consider any filter changes.

To create a filtered version:

1. Expand the Filters Pane while viewing the report.

2. Set/Select the filter criteria that you desire

3. PowerBI Robots will detect the changes and set a filter icon on the node.