We regularly receive questions from customers about adding parts of BI reports to presentations. Numbers and visualizations are often copied from BI tools into, for example, a PowerPoint presentation to make them easier to present. Updating the presentation takes time and involves the same steps every time. Of course, you can simply present directly from a Power BI report, but there are also ways to approach this more efficiently using PowerPoint.
Power BI Export Feature
For some time now, Power BI has included the ability to export a report to PowerPoint. However, this export feature simply creates a PowerPoint presentation in which each tab has its own slide showing the current view. The Power BI report is added to the PowerPoint presentation as a high-resolution image, and no interactivity is possible. This does not solve the problem of having to update the presentations every time.
Power BI Add-on
Power BI dashboards, tiles, and reports can also be added to PowerPoint using the “Power BI Tiles” add-on. The advantage of using this add-on is that the reports are then displayed directly from Power BI. This means the data is always up to date, and when a report is displayed, it’s also interactive. You can therefore navigate through the Power BI report within the PowerPoint slideshow.
The Power BI Tiles Add-on connects to powerbi.com. After logging in, you can select a report or dashboard, which is then “imported” into PowerPoint. A report is displayed in its entirety and remains interactive. It can also be refreshed. If you use a scheduled report or a report with Live Connect, it is refreshed automatically.
When a dashboard is added to a slide, the first tiles are displayed. You can swipe between the tiles, or you can add the same dashboard multiple times so that different tiles are visible on the slide. Of course, you can add accompanying text to the visualizations in PowerPoint.
Conclusion
The Power BI Tiles add-on in PowerPoint is a great way to incorporate (parts of) a Power BI report into PowerPoint. As far as I’m concerned, Power BI’s own export feature doesn’t offer much added value compared to simply taking a screenshot of a Power BI report.
