How to Automate Your Report Delivery with Power Automate

Imagine: every Monday morning at 8 AM, your managers automatically receive their weekly dashboard. No human intervention. No forgetting. No errors.

This is exactly what Power Automate allows you to do with Power BI.

Why Automate Report Delivery?

The benefits are numerous:

• Time savings: No need to generate and send manually
• Reliability: Zero risk of forgetting
• Personalization: Each recipient gets their own data
• Traceability: Complete history of all deliveries

Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:

1. A Power BI Pro or Premium license
2. Access to Power Automate
3. A Power BI report published to the service

Step 1: Create the Power Automate Flow

Log in to Power Automate and create a new scheduled flow:

1. Click Create > Scheduled cloud flow
2. Name your flow
3. Set the recurrence (e.g., every Monday at 8 AM)

Step 2: Add the Power BI Action

Search for and add the "Export to File for Power BI Reports" action:

• Select your workspace
• Choose the report to export
• Define the format (PDF, PPTX, PNG...)

Step 3: Configure Email Delivery

Add the "Send an email (V2)" action from the Office 365 connector:

To: manager@company.com
Subject: 📊 Weekly Report - Week [number]
Body: Hello,
 
Please find attached this week's performance report.
 
Key points to monitor:
- Revenue vs target
- Gross margin
- Sales pipeline
 
Happy reading!

Don't forget to attach the file exported in the previous step.

Step 4: Test and Activate

1. Click Test to run the flow manually
2. Verify that the email arrives correctly
3. Activate the flow so it runs automatically

Going Further

Once the basic flow is in place, you can enhance it:

Conditional Sending

Send the report only if certain conditions are met (e.g., KPI below a threshold).

Multiple Recipients

Create a loop to send personalized reports to each manager.

Teams Notifications

In addition to email, post a notification in a Teams channel.

Conclusion

Automating your reports is an excellent first step toward a data-driven culture. Your teams receive the information they need, at the right time, without additional effort.

Need help setting up your automations? Contact me for personalized support.