Use Power Automate to get "Power BI App" data (not from a "Report")

[Anonymous]

Hello, all!

   I have been using the Power Platform for a while now, and I know how to use Power Automate to interact with Power BI reports on workspaces. I would like to use the Power Automate action "Run query against dataset" to retrieve data from a Power BI App. If you have never done used Power Automate to interact with Power BI Reports, here is a great tutorial with video (not mine). If the Power BI is a "Report" on a "Workspace", simply select the workspace, then the dataset, and you're good to go using DAX queries.

However, instead of a "Report", I need to get data from a "Power BI App". Any ideas? Here is the URL of the app (with numbers replaced):

https://app.powerbi.com/groups/me/apps/aaaaa/reports/bbbbb/ccccc?experience=power-bi

I can enter custom values as the "Workspace" and "Dataset", and have tried many combinations of the above URL to no avail. Any ideas on how to use Power Automate to interact with a "Power BI App"? 

Thanks, in advance!

Steve in Spain

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

As @ibarrau said, when you use flow, it actually calls the power bi restful api. There is no direct way to send a query request to the app. 

But if your scenario is that you don’t know what semantic model is used in the App, please try the following solution.

1\ Get all the dataset IDs in the app by calling the API in the flow

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi/apps/get-reports

2\ Call the api to exectue querys in flow

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi/datasets/execute-queries

This method can be used to dynamically obtain the dataset id in the app.

Best Regards,

Wearsky

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hello, all,

Note that none of the responses here worked, so I asked them to create a "Report" on a workspace instead of an "App", and that does the trick. Many thanks for the suggestions.

Steve in Spain

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

As @ibarrau said, when you use flow, it actually calls the power bi restful api. There is no direct way to send a query request to the app. 

But if your scenario is that you don’t know what semantic model is used in the App, please try the following solution.

1\ Get all the dataset IDs in the app by calling the API in the flow

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi/apps/get-reports

2\ Call the api to exectue querys in flow

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi/datasets/execute-queries

This method can be used to dynamically obtain the dataset id in the app.

Best Regards,

Wearsky

[Anonymous]

Many thanks! I'll give it a try and report back.

Steve in Spain

[ibarrau]

Hi. You can't do that. The Power Bi App is a mix of reports from a Workspace. It's a tool to help the way it is distributed for users. It's not an independant storage that has a different semantic model for the report. Both the report at the app and the report at workspace have the same semantic model. If you want to query the semantic model you have to do it through the workspace. 

I hope that make sense

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I had checked the Microsoft documentation and couldn't find any clear explanation. Do you have an authoritative Microsoft source confirming this? Perhaps, someone has a workaround or has done this before?

[ibarrau]

I'm aware of all the PowerBi Rest API requests. The Power Bi boxes you see at Power Automate are actually Rest API requests. I can know for sure you cannot find a semantic model for a Power Bi App because there is no semantic model. It doesn't duplicate the semantic model, it uses the one at the workspace. When runing a query to a dataset it asks for workspace.

The docs says: An app combines related content, like dashboards, spreadsheets, semantic models, and reports, all in one place. You can get more details about apps here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/consumer/end-user-apps

I hope that helps