How to use real-time data in Power BI using Microsoft Flow

Using Microsoft flow and Power Automate we can easily use Power BI Real-time data sets. What is required is as follows:

1.       An Office 365 free 30-days trial or subscription.

2.       Microsoft Flow

3.       Microsoft Flow

4.       Power BI Free or Pro edition.

What is our Business scenario?

Contoso Inc wants to hold an event and sends 1000 participants a simple digital survey. They ask about 3 questions i. What Microsoft TECHNOLOGY they are interested in, the number of years of EXPERIENCE they have in that technology and the LOCATION they are from.

Contoso wants REAL-TIME dashboard whenever any participant submits the survey.  Specifically, Contoso wants the COUNTRY they are from, and participants their number of EXPERIENCE.

The technology we can use to achieve this requirement

We can use MICROSOFT FORM to capture digital form. The Microsoft Flow which will process our questions in the Microsoft flow. Next,  we can use set up Power BI Push dataset and use Power Visuals to achieve this.

This is a sample of our Microsoft Form 

Step1: Start Microsoft Flow

1. Microsoft Flow has many templates that we can leverage.
   
   for our case, we will create Flow from scratch
2. Create from blank 
3. Click on Create from blank
   
   
4. We will choose Microsoft Forms as our Trigger in the Flow.
   
   
    
5. It will limit me the number of actions and trigger which are available to our disposal.
6. We have only ONE trigger which is nice. Click on “When a new response is submitted”.
   
   
   
7. As I have single sign-on turned on, I will be presented with Form ID. Choose the Form which I have created
   
   
8. Next, click on New step
   
   
9. It is storing all the information as an array within Flow. When a person submits the form, it will be a trigger.  So, if Alex submits the 3 questions in the survey, Flow will process all the 3 questions in the “Get response details” action.
   
   
10. Select the Form which we created in the previous step and in the “Response Id”, under the Dynamic content select the List of response notifications Response Id
    
     
    
11. Now it has created some new elements and each response is wrapped by for each loop.
    
    

    Step 2: Streaming Data using Power BI

12. Go to Power BI and created a new app workspace. Name it as 25 Apr 2019 Streaming Data set Demo. It won't have any dashboards, reports, etc.
    
    
13. This is the landing page.  Click on the Skip
    
    
14. Click on Create option and then click on Streaming dataset.
    
    
15. We will leverage API and click NEXT
    
    
16. Now it has Power BI has a very intuitive user interface (UI) which just enter the values. Types the values as follows
    
    Technology, Experience, and Location.
    
    Toggle ON for Historical data analysis
    
    
17. A new dataset has been created.
    
    
18. It has the same look and feel just like your Power BI Desktop.
    
    
19. Firstly, we will create a table visual here.
    
    
20. Drag all the fields to the table.
    
    
      
21. Bump the column headers and Value size.
    
    
    
    
22. Make alternate rows in Style property
    
    
23. Turn off Total
    
    
    
24. Drag the MAP visual and alight towards the top right.
    
    
25. Drag Location field onto the Location property of the map.
    
    
26.  Drag the Technology field onto the Legend property of the map.
    
    
27. And finally, drag Experience field onto Size property of the map.
    
    
28. The last chart is stacked column chart and drags it to report canvas.
    
    
29. Drag Technology onto Axis property, Experience onto Legend property and Experience onto Size property.
    
     
30. Save the report as 25 Apr 2019 Survey Response
    
     
31. Next, pin the visuals individually to Dashboard 
    
32. Do the same for TWO more visuals.
33. Now, our Dashboard is ready.
    
    
34. Note that Streaming and Pubnub works only for custom streaming data as shown.
    
    
    
    and we can’t use ANY of the visual that we are doing for this example
    
    

    Step 3: Complete the Flow 

35. Click on Add an action in Flow just below the  When a new response is a submitted trigger
    
    
    
    
36. Next, Add rows to a data action
    
    
    
37. Choose appropriate workspace
    
    
38. Select the Dataset
    
    
39. The table will be RealTimeData.
40. Next, Flow dynamically shows the Forms data fields.
    
    
    
    
41. From Technology data field, choose the appropriate item from MS Forms.
    
    
42. Select other Form fields as shown:
    
    
43. Click on SAVE button on the Flow and you will see the Run History when people are submitting the MS form data.
    
    
    
    

    Step 4: View the Power BI Dashboard

44. Dashboard display real-time data when anyone submits a form
    
    
45. The report can be refreshed by using a Schedule.
    
    
    
    Hope you find this blog post useful 

--Aroh Shukla