Power BI (live reports)

Introduction

The Power BI integration shows your organization's Power BI reports live on InfoBox screens. No public Publish to web links: InfoBox reads only the workspaces your IT shares with it, and screens never hold your Microsoft credentials. The add-on is free in InfoBox. Setup takes at most three people: an InfoBox admin, a Microsoft Entra admin and a Power BI admin. Often one person is all three.

What you need

Before you start:

• Capacity: the workspace with the reports must be on Microsoft Fabric (F SKU), Power BI Premium (P SKU) or Power BI Embedded (A or EM SKU) capacity. Power BI Pro or Premium Per User licenses alone are not enough: Microsoft only allows embedding in apps on capacity.
• A Microsoft Entra admin to connect: Global, Application, Cloud Application, Privileged Role or Fabric Administrator.
• A Power BI admin for two tenant settings.
• Screens online: reports load from Power BI on the screen itself, so screens need HTTPS access to app.powerbi.com.

Step 1: Connect from InfoBox

In the InfoBox control panel:

• Open Add-ons and find Power BI.
• Click Connect and read the short checklist.
• Click Sign in with Microsoft and sign in with your organization's Microsoft account.
• Approve the app InfoBox Signage. The person signing in must hold an Entra admin role: Global, Application, Cloud Application, Privileged Role or Fabric Administrator (a role from Privileged Identity Management must be active).
• You come back to Add-ons. The card now shows a live setup checklist.

Step 2: Power BI tenant settings

Power BI admin, at app.powerbi.com:

• Open Settings (gear icon) → Admin portal → Tenant settings → Developer settings.
• Enable Service principals can call Fabric public APIs.
• Enable Embed content in apps.
• Recommended: enable both for a security group that contains InfoBox Signage instead of the whole organization.
• Changes can take up to 15 minutes to apply.

Step 3: Share a workspace with InfoBox

Workspace admin, for each workspace whose reports go on screens:

• Open the workspace → Manage access.
• Add InfoBox Signage with the Member role.
• Check that the workspace is on capacity: Workspace settings → License info shows Fabric capacity, Premium capacity or Embedded.
• InfoBox sees only the workspaces it has been added to, nothing else in your Power BI.

Step 4: Add a report to a screen

Back in InfoBox, once the checklist says Ready:

• Open a screen or playlist and click Add new.
• Open Integrations and pick Power BI.
• Choose the report and, if you like, one of its pages.
• Set how long it shows and click Add.
• The report shows live, in its own design, and refreshes itself.

Designing for screens

Power BI reports designed for desktop often look cluttered on screens. Optimize:

• Use large fonts. Default Power BI fonts are too small for viewing from across a room.
• Use simple, high-contrast charts. Bar, line, big number tiles work best.
• Strip filters, slicers, and bookmarks from the published view.
• Use a single page or short navigation. Multi-page reports become hard to follow on a screen.

Portrait screens

A Power BI page has a fixed shape, set when the report is made, and InfoBox scales it to fit the screen. A landscape (16:9) page on a portrait screen therefore shows as a narrow strip with empty space above and below.

• In Power BI Desktop, add a portrait page to the report: Format page → Canvas settings → Custom, 1080 × 1920.
• Lay the visuals out for the tall page: stacked cards and charts read better than wide tables.
• Publish the report, then pick that page for the portrait screen. One report can hold both landscape and portrait pages.
• The add-slide form previews the report in the screen's shape, so you see how it fits before adding it.

Security in brief

For your IT and security team:

• InfoBox uses one app identity with no stored passwords, secrets or user tokens. Power BI needs no Microsoft Graph or other API permissions.
• Access is limited to the workspaces you add InfoBox Signage to, and it is read-only. InfoBox never edits, publishes or shares reports.
• Screens get a view-only embed token for one report, valid for about an hour, never a Microsoft credential.
• You can revoke access at any time: remove InfoBox Signage from a workspace, turn off the tenant settings or delete the app in Entra. Access appears in Entra sign-in logs and the Microsoft Purview audit log.

Troubleshooting

The checklist on the Add-ons card shows which step is missing. Common cases:

• Power BI refuses InfoBox: the tenant settings in step 2 are off or not yet applied. Wait 15 minutes and click Check again.
• No workspaces: InfoBox Signage hasn't been added to a workspace (step 3).
• Workspace without capacity: the workspace is on Pro. Move it to Fabric, Premium or Embedded capacity.
• The report stays blank on the screen: the screen can't reach app.powerbi.com. Check the network or proxy.
• Row-level security: reports with RLS are not supported yet.

Without capacity: public links

If your reports are not on capacity, Power BI's Publish to web still works: publish the report, copy the embed URL and add it as a Website slide in the Web category. Publish to web makes the report public on the internet, so use it only for data that may be public.