Adding Power BI as a tab in teams channel is failing?

[Wayne74]

Hi All,

I am having a weird issue.  Last week I was able to add Power BI in channels in teams, both private and public.  This week it seems to be failing.  I did do a teams update this morning and I am not sure if its related?

The Steps:

1. Open my Channel
2. Hit the + symbol
3. PowerBI does not show up in the list at the top, but does show up in the Popular in your Org section
4. Click it and then hit Add
5. It brings up the splash screen that prompts if you want to post to the channel, which I untick and hit Save
6. The tab disappears and nothing is added to the channel

Additional Information:

• If I go to the team settings under Apps i can see PowerBI is there
• I can add PowerBI to the Public channel in the team
• I got this error message once and havent seen it since "Unable to save Power BI tab configuration", which I have googled without much success
  • I found one other similiar post here from 2020 and no-one had answered the post
  • Power BI - teams - Microsoft Fabric Community
• I am the Team owner and owner of each channel
• I have tried force closing Teams and restarting it
• It all seemed to work last week, so not sure what has changed other than the Update, but I dont want to assume that is the issue yet and I am hoping people may have some other ideas?

[Wayne74 · Accepted solution]

So I logged back in today and the tabs have re-appeared.  I asked my Microsoft contact and he said all he had done was ping the internal MS community so he wasnt sure if anything came of that or it was just co-incidental.

[TJM1]

Hi @Wayne74 ,

Have come across the same issue and tried the full reinstall to resolve without success.

Interestingly power bi tabs in private tabs are visible in the mobile app so would increasingly point to an issue with the recent update

[nelmey]

I to am having this issue, it appears to be something to do with an update where they have changed the power bi tabs to apps which are available through the mobile version but not on the current update of the destop version. I found some documentation which said to add Power BI as an app and the you could assign it to a tab but the add an app option is not available in my version of the destop version. 

[Wayne74]

@nelmey Can you please link the documentation you found?  If they are moving this way we will need to keep an eye on it so it can be done once the app is available.

[nelmey]

It may have been a copilot response I had seen which as I have just revieved this when trying to find the documentation. 

Absolutely, I can guide you through adding the Power BI app to a Teams channel. Here's a step-by-step process:

1. Open Microsoft Teams: Launch the Microsoft Teams application on your device.

2. Navigate to the Channel: Go to the specific team and channel where you want to add the Power BI app.

3. Add a Tab:

   • Click on the window icon (which has replaced the plus sign) at the top of the channel.
   • A new window will pop up with a list of apps you can add.

4. Select Power BI:

   • In the search bar, type "Power BI" and select it from the list of available apps.

5. Configure Power BI:

   • Follow the prompts to configure the Power BI tab. You may need to sign in to your Power BI account if you aren't already logged in.
   • Choose the specific report or dashboard you want to display in the channel.

6. Save and Finish:

   • Click Save to add the Power BI tab to your channel.
   • The Power BI report or dashboard will now be accessible directly within the Teams channel.

This should help you seamlessly integrate Power BI into your Teams workflow. If you encounter any issues, feel free to reach out for more assistance!

[Wayne74]

Sorry I was logged in under the wrong account 🙂

That is how I currently do it, I thought you meant there was another way.

[roygonzalezp]

I'm having the same problem. Have you found any workarounds? Reinstalling, creating new channels, or using Teams Web didn't work for me. It seems the issue only affects private channels; at least in my case, the tabs remained in public channels.

[Wayne74]

I have reached out to a contact at MS who will hopefully be able to provide some answers.

[Wayne74]

Thank you TJM1.  Its nice to know its not just me that has the issue.  Hopefully they will resolve it soon.

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @Wayne74 , Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

Create a new private channel in the same team. Try adding the Power BI tab there. This checks if the issue is specific to the original channel’s settings. If that doesn’t work, open teams.microsoft.com in Chrome or Edge, go to your private channel, click the “+” symbol, select Power BI and add the tab without posting to the channel. This bypasses potential desktop app bugs from the update. If it works, use the web version temporarily. Also clear all the Teams cache.

In Teams, go to Apps, find Power BI, and uninstall it. Reinstall it by searching for Power BI in the Apps section, add it back, sign in and try adding the tab. This resolves issues from a corrupted app installation. If you’re not a tenant admin, ask your admin to confirm Power BI is allowed in Teams Admin Center -> Teams Apps -> Manage Apps.

As a workaround, you can add the Power BI tab to a public channel and restrict access via Power BI workspace permissions or in Power BI, open the report, click Share -> Chat in Teams and send it to the private channel for users to access directly.

If this helped solve the issue, please consider marking it 'Accept as Solution' so others with similar queries may find it more easily. If not, please share the details, always happy to help.
Thank you.

[Wayne74]

Hi @v-hashadapu 

Thank you for the reply.

- I tried adding a new private channel and it does the same

- When I go to online version of Teams the tabs are already there from before so I dont need to re-add them.  The same with the mobile version, its only the desktop version that is doing this.
- I tried uninstalling PowerBI from the Team and re-adding it with no results

So the issue is purely with the Teams desktop since the last update.  Hopefully they can fix it soon.