Dynamics CRM Reporting with Power BI

Published: 10 February 2017

Do you find the reports and dashboards available within Dynamics CRM, now known as Dynamics 365, restrictive? Would you prefer more visual reports? Would you like to query more dimensions? Would you like to include data from additional sources? Now you can.

Power BI is a free Business Intelligence tool from Microsoft. It provides a suite of business analytics tools that can be used to extend the reporting capabilities of almost any applications, including Dynamics CRM. Here we show you how you can transform Dynamics CRM data into rich visuals, delivering valuable predictions, forecasts and performance metrics – extending you reporting capabilities.

Your data on the go

With Power BI you can stay connected to your personalised dashboards and reports anywhere. You can monitor the health of your business using Power BI for your Desktop and access your data on the go with native Power BI Mobile apps.

What Dynamics CRM reports are available?

Dynamic CRM comes with the set of predefined reports that cover different areas of CRM, including sales, service, administrative, and marketing. Sales reports, for example, show all the activities associated with a sale, from the lead through to the purchase stage. These reports can also provide statistical information about accounts, lead sources, competitors, and products.

Why is Power BI better than Dynamics CRM reports?

Although Dynamics CRM provides a wide range of reports for sales, marketing and service, it lacks the flexibility to modify the existing templates. By combining Power BI and Dynamics CRM you can quickly convert your data into meaningful insights with rich visual dashboards accessible on any device.

What’s more, the Power BI reports are never out of date, they automatically refresh to present the most up-to-date information. All reports are drillable, which means you have access to underlying data through a set of visualisations and filtering options, allowing you to monitor performance, analyse trends and spot potential issues before they occur.

What is available in Power BI?

With Power BI, you can get real-time insights from your Microsoft Dynamics CRM data. You will have access to all the tables of your Dynamics CRM database, including:

Modelling:

  • Define relationships between your tables.
  • Transform your data columns into more meaningful analytics.
  • Create calculated columns (i.e. time between an opportunity opening and closing).

Visuals:

Create stunning visuals based on your data modelling from Dynamics CRM.

Example reports

Power BI will help you identify opportunities, analyse your pipeline and view your sales across a variety of metrics to gain actionable insights. You can drill down into each top level chart to understand specifics of each metric such as account, leads, revenue and service. Below is a few examples of reporting and dashboards through Power BI:

Sales Performance

Review pipeline health and individual performance to help forecast revenue and identify areas for improvement.

Sales Leader Boards

Easily analyse the performance of individual sales representatives, exploring the number of sales as well as the overall value of sales. Slice, dice and filter your data, for example based on the actual close date.

Win/Loss Analysis

Analyse what deals have been won and lost. Use the team view to monitor performance of the sales representatives.

Top Won/ Lost Deals

Look at your top won and lost deals and identify areas for improvement.

Sales Pipeline

Look at your overall sales pipeline and segment it by key sales identifiers.

Sales Pipeline Leader board

Identify your sales leaders exploring their number of deals and top open opportunities to forecast revenue and identify areas for improvement.

Open Activities

See what activities are open for the team.

Lead Analysis

See what leads are coming into Dynamics CRM and how many have been converted.

Account Analysis

Understand your audiences better and discover products and services to suit their needs.

Other Power BI Report examples:

  • Open Product Leader board – Find out which products are leading in the sales pipeline. This will allow you to better manage your  inventory and workloads
  • Closed Products Leader board – Find out which products have sold the most
  • Marketing Analysis – Look at how well your marketing campaigns are performing by analysing budget vs actual spend and looking at responses to the campaigns
  • Case Management – Manage your case in a central dashboard to analyse the performance and trends
  • Case Leader board – Review cases open and closed by the case operative and for the team
  • Case Resolutions – Look at common case resolutions
  • Organisation Performance KPIs – Measure KPIs against performance

Want to get started?

  1. Download Power BI for FREE here.
  2. Start guided learning Power BI with the online tutorials here.

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