Tutorial: Embed Power BI content using a sample embed for your customers' application

APPLIES TO:  App owns data  User owns data

Embedded analytics and Power BI Embedded (the Azure offer) allow you to embed Power BI content such as reports, dashboards, and tiles, into your application.

In this tutorial, you learn how to:

To use your application, your users don't need to sign in to Power BI or have a Power BI license.

We recommend using the embed for your customers method to embed your Power BI content, if you're an independent software vendor (ISV) or a developer, who wants to create applications for third parties.

Code sample specifications

This tutorial includes instructions for configuring an embed for your customers sample application in one of the following frameworks:

• .NET Framework
• .NET Core
• Java
• Node JS
• Python

The code samples support the following browsers:

• Microsoft Edge
• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox

Prerequisites

Before you start this tutorial, verify that you have the following the Power BI and code dependencies:

• Power BI dependencies

  • Your own Microsoft Entra tenant.

  • To authenticate your app against Power BI, you need one of the following:

    • Service principal - a Microsoft Entra service principal object that allows Microsoft Entra ID to authenticate your app.

    • Power BI Pro license - This is your master user and your app uses it to authenticate to Power BI.

    • A Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) license - This is your master user and your app uses it to authenticate to Power BI.

    Note

    To move to production you'll need a capacity.

• Code dependencies

Method

To create an embed for your customers sample app, follow these steps:

1. Select your authentication method.

2. Register a Microsoft Entra application.

3. Create a Power BI workspace.

4. Create and publish a Power BI report.

5. Get the embedding parameter values.

6. Service principal API access

7. Enable workspace access.

8. Embed your content.

Step 1 - Select your authentication method

Your embedded solution varies depending on the authentication method you select. Therefore, it's important to understand the differences between the authentication methods, and decide which one best suits your solution.

The following table describes a few key differences between the service principal and master user authentication methods.

Step 2 - Register a Microsoft Entra application

Registering your application with Microsoft Entra ID allows you to:

To register your application with Microsoft Entra ID, follow the instructions in Register your application.

Step 3 - Create a Power BI workspace

Power BI keeps your reports, dashboards, and tiles in a workspace. To embed these items, you'll need to create them and upload them into a workspace.

To create a workspace, do the following:

1. Sign in to Power BI.

2. Select Workspaces.

3. Select Create a workspace.

4. Name your workspace and select Save.

Step 4 - Create and publish a Power BI report

Your next step is to create a report and upload it to your workspace. You can create your own report using Power BI Desktop, and then publish it to your workspace. Or, you can upload a sample report to your workspace.

To download a sample report and publish it to your workspace, follow these steps:

1. Open the GitHub Power BI Desktop samples folder.

2. Select Code and then select Download zip.

   

3. Extract the downloaded ZIP and navigate to the Samples Reports folder.

4. Select a report to embed, and publish it to your workspace.

Step 5 - Get the embedding parameter values

To embed your content, you need to obtain certain parameter values. The following table shows the required values, and indicates if they're applicable to the service principal authentication method, the master user authentication method, or both.

Before you embed your content, make sure you have all the values listed below. Some of the values might differ, depending on the authentication method you're using.

Parameter	Service principal	Master user
Client ID
Workspace ID
Report ID
Client secret
Tenant ID		required only for Node JS
Power BI username
Power BI password

Client ID

To get the client ID GUID (also know as application ID), follow these steps:

1. Log into Microsoft Azure.

2. Search for App registrations and select the App registrations link.

3. Select the Microsoft Entra app you're using for embedding your Power BI content.

4. From the Overview section, copy the Application (client) ID GUID.

Workspace ID

To get the workspace ID GUID, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to Power BI service.

2. Open the report you want to embed.

3. Copy the GUID from the URL. The GUID is the number between /groups/ and /reports/.

   

Alternatively, you can find the workspace ID in the Admin portal settings by selecting Details next to the workspace name.

Report ID

To get the report ID GUID, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to Power BI service.

2. Open the report you want to embed.

3. Copy the GUID from the URL. The GUID is the number between /reports/ and /ReportSection.

   

Client secret

To get the client secret, follow these steps:

1. Log into Microsoft Azure.

2. Search for App registrations and select the App registrations link.

3. Select the Microsoft Entra app you're using for embedding your Power BI content.

4. Under Manage, select Certificates & secrets.

5. Under Client secrets, select New client secret.

6. In the Add a client secret pop-up window, provide a description for your application secret, select when the application secret expires, and select Add.

7. From the Client secrets section, copy the string in the Value column of the newly created application secret. The client secret value is your client ID.

Tenant ID

To get the tenant ID GUID, follow these steps:

1. Log into Microsoft Azure.

2. Search for App registrations and select the App registrations link.

3. Select the Microsoft Entra app you're using for embedding your Power BI content.

4. From the Overview section, copy the Directory (tenant) ID GUID.

Power BI username and password

Obtain the username and password of the Power BI user you're using as your master user. This is the same user you used to create a workspace and upload a report to, in Power BI service.

Step 6 - Service principal API access

For a Microsoft Entra app to be able to access the Power BI content and APIs, a Power BI admin needs to enable service principal access in the Power BI admin portal. If you're not the admin of your tenant, get the tenant's admin to enable the Tenant settings for you.

1. In Power BI service, select Settings > Settings > Admin portal.

   

2. Select Tenant settings and then scroll down to the Developer settings section.

3. Expand Service principals can use Fabric APIs, and enable this option.

   

Step 7 - Enable workspace access

To enable your Microsoft Entra app access objects such as reports, dashboards and semantic models in the Power BI service, add the service principal or master user, as a member or admin to your workspace.

1. Sign in to Power BI service.

2. Scroll to the workspace you want to enable access for, and from the More menu, select Workspace access.

   

3. In the Access pane, depending on which authentication method you're using, copy the service principal or master user to the Enter email address text box.

   Note

   If you're using a service principal, its name is the name you gave your Microsoft Entra app.

4. Select Add.

Step 8 - Embed your content

The Power BI embedded sample application allows you to create an embed for your customers Power BI app.

Follow these steps to modify the embed for your customers sample application, to embed your Power BI report.

1. Open the Power BI developer samples folder.

2. Select Code and then select Download zip.

   

3. Extract the downloaded ZIP and navigate to the PowerBI-Developer-Samples-master folder.

4. Depending on the language you want your app to use, open one of these folders:

   • .NET Core
   • .NET Framework
   • Java
   • Node JS
   • Python

   Note

   The embed for your customers sample applications only support the frameworks listed above. The React sample application only supports the embed for your organization solution.

5. Open the Embed for your customers folder.

Developing your application

After configuring and running the embed for your customers sample application, you can start developing your own application.

Try out the Power BI embedded analytics playground to get started developing and to keep up with all the new Power BI Embedded features and updates.

When you're ready, review the move to production requirements. You'll also need a capacity, and should review the capacity planning article to establish which SKU best suits your needs.

Related content

• Move to production
• Embed for your organization
• Embed paginated reports

More questions? Ask the Power BI Community.