Installing the app takes a few minutes. You install it once, connect it to your Business Central data, and it refreshes on a schedule from then on.
Step 1 — Install the app
- Open the app from Microsoft AppSource (or the link Naviona provides) and choose Get it now / Install.
- Power BI creates a new workspace in your tenant containing the app and its reports. At this point the reports show sample data — you connect your own data in the next step.
Step 2 — Connect your data
After installing, a banner reads “You need to connect to your data.” Select Connect your data. You will be asked for three values:
- Environment — the name of your Business Central environment (for example, Production).
- Company — the name of the company within that environment. Use the company name exactly as it appears in Business Central.
- Time Zone — the time zone the reports use for the “Last Refreshed” stamp and today’s-date logic. Choose from Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific, or Arizona.
- Enter the three values and continue.
- When prompted for authentication, choose OAuth2 and sign in with your Business Central credentials. This authorizes Power BI to read your data.
- Power BI runs the first refresh. When it finishes, the reports show your data.
Note. The Environment and Company names must match Business Central exactly. If a report is empty after connecting, the most common cause is a mismatched company name or an environment with no Bookings data yet.
Step 3 — Refreshing your data
The app loads a copy of your data (Import mode) and refreshes it on a schedule — once a day by default. You can change the schedule, or run a refresh on demand, from the semantic model’s settings in your Power BI workspace.
- Scheduled refresh — in your workspace, open the app’s semantic model settings and set the schedule. Power BI Pro allows up to 8 refreshes a day; Premium Per User, Premium, and Fabric allow up to 48.
- Refresh now — use “Refresh now” on the semantic model to pull the latest Business Central data immediately.
The Refresh visuals button inside a report only redraws the charts from data already loaded — it does not go back to Business Central. To pick up newly entered bookings, refresh the model.
Switching company or environment
One installed copy points at one environment and one company. To report on a second company or environment, install the app again and, at the reinstall prompt, choose “Install another copy of the app into a new workspace,” then enter the different Environment and Company. This gives you an independent copy that refreshes on its own. If you would rather see several companies together in one report, contact Naviona — that is a customization.