Displaying reports on office screens/smart TV's as part of a playlist

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I am currently investigating displaying a few key reports and dashboards around our office.  We currently have a handful of Smart TV's that use Onelan hardware devices and the associated CMS console to manage the playlists.

Unfortunately, Onelan don't supply an easy way to integrate Power BI.  I have done further research and have found Embed Signage does support Onelan devices, but at a cost.

Has anyone else got any other suggestions on how to get Power BI reports displayed on Smart TV's, without having to resort to making a report public?  Does anyone else know of any vendor that supports both Onelan hardware and Power BI natively?

Thanks

[DMiradakis]

Chiming in a bit after the fact, but I've built a custom Power BI software to do this, it's exclusively built for Power BI, it's not a generic TV digital signage software like the others are. It's called Displagent, it's a cross-platform desktop app (runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux - Raspberry Pi's are quite popular).

Displagent allows you to build extremely advanced slideshows from Power BI reports and Power BI dashboards rather than just display embed URLs like the other do. The 3 slideshow types are:

• Report Slideshows (extremely popular)
• Dashboard Slideshows
• Compound Slideshows (mix and match any amount of the first two)

Going off a small example, if you have a Power BI report with 3 tabs and 2 report bookmarks, you could do the following:

• Show tab 2 for 30 seconds.
• Show report bookmark 1 for 45 seconds.
• Show tab 1 for 60 seconds.
• Show report bookmark 2 for 120 seconds.
• Etc.
• Refresh every 15 seconds.

A few other notes:

• Dedicated capacities are not required.
• You don't have to make any reports public.
• All datasets, reports, and dashboards stay in your own workspaces.
• Power BI Pro licensing is all you need.
• No manual logins and session timeouts ever occur. Instead, Displagent uses an Azure App Registration and a Power BI service account, and it encrypts your credentials locally on y... This is much safer than storing your credentials or access tokens in some database or some server somewhere (this is what most signage companies do).
• Autolaunch to a specific slideshow type and slideshow on machine startup/reboot is supported.

Check it out if interested, I do flat pricing for unlimited installations. I also have extensive experience with the Power BI Javascript SDK after building this, so happy to any answer questions regarding that, as well. Hope this helps!

[sgpreszler]

Here is how we do it. Check out the RocketScreens Podcast - How to Connect Your Power BI reports to a television - Youtube video for a quick demo - https://youtu.be/lKXecKepMUc 

I work for a management consulting company that has built reports on many software platforms over the past 20 years. We saw the problem, (gorgeous or important information that is hard to present on screens- ugh). Could we get these reports and dashboards to TV's (as part of a playlist) for our clients. We thought it is so hard to get this info to staff in the offices and even hybrid once you have built them. Management wants their employees to be on the same page.

So we used the covid days to build out a commercial solution to it.   Right now, we can connect to over 100 different SaaS solutions, including Power BI. We have two other connectors depending on the level of security you require. 

1. You grab an Amazon Firestick or Google Chromecast TV hardware stick; either is under $40.   Our application is in their collective app stores;

2. Go to the RocketScreens CMS app and create a trial account, Power BI Reports and Dashboards on Any Digital Screen.   

2a. If you don't have a hardware stick, you can create a virtual link to put in a browser or a Microsoft Team's room.   And we have built software links to download to both a PC or Mac if you are plugging a computer into the TV. ( using a bad idea, but it still is common). 

3. Upload your image, video, pdf, etc., content, plus connect to the 100 plus apps like Microsoft Power BI. We log in securely, take screenshots every few minutes, and upload them to the TV. Some other connectors create an authentic live link for real-time reports. 

4. Create custom playlists as channels and even schedule what you want to display. 

5. To marry the playlist to the device, go inside the CMS app and enter the QR code or 5-digit code on the device ( TV), name it, and pick the right channel. It plays within seconds.  

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Just for completeness of the question.....

In the end, the org I work for has started using Screen Cloud for other purposes.  Their solution allows us to use Amazon FireStick TV devices to display content.

Screen Cloud include Power BI integration into their service, so it was simple as creating an app and allowing access.

More details:

https://screencloud.com/blog/how-microsoft-power-bi-works

[v-luwang-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Has your problem been solved, if so, please consider Accept a correct reply as the solution or share your own solution to help others find it.

Best Regards
Lucien

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Sorry for the late reply!  See below for the final solution.

[v-luwang-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

I did a search on the web and didn't find any articles on Onelan and Power BI integration (there are a few on Embed Signage, but that doesn't seem to be what you need), you can see the way in the following article to try another way to display the report on the TV.

How To Display on a TV?:https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Service/How-To-Display-on-a-TV/td-p/445107/page/2 

How to display reports on TV as slideshow?: https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Service/How-to-display-reports-on-TV-as-slideshow/m-p/809854 

How to display a Microsoft Power BI Dashboard or Report with embed:https://support.embedsignage.com/en/articles/4884352-how-to-display-a-microsoft-power-bi-dashboard-or-report-with-embed 

Don't forget to give thumbs up and accept this as a solution if it helped you!!!

Best Regards

Lucien