Last September, the Power BI solution template for System Center Configuration Manager was released. The SCCM Power BI Dashboard provides detailed information of your SCCM hierarchy including client and server health, malware protection, software updates, and software inventory. Better late than never, we decided to do a blog post on how to link your SCCM server to Power BI and install the SCCM Power BI Dashboard. The SCCM Dashboard will show data as soon as you finish this wizard. You’ll also be able to build your own Power BI reports and publish it if you have a valid Power BI license.
If you are not familiar with Power BI, you can read the FAQ which has answers to the most common questions.
Power BI Products
We have developed some Power BI Dashboard to help you manage your SCCM/MEMCM infrastructure. See our product page or our Power BI page to buy and install.
SCCM Power BI Dashboard System Requirements
- SCCM 2012 R2 SP1 (5.00.8239.1000) or later
- An account with Read access to SCCM database is required
- Destination database: Azure SQL database or SQL Server database (SQL Server 2008 R2 SP3 or later)
- Valid Work email address
- On the machine where the installation is run:
- Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 or later.
- PowerShell version 5.0 or later.
- For Operating System: Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, or later. Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or later
- Power BI Desktop (free) to open SCCM PoweerBI Dashboard and edit further reports
- Power BI Pro license (if you want to share your reports only)
- 60 days free trial version is available here
Power BI Desktop Installation
The installation wizard will get us through the process of entering the information about our SCCM, SQL Server and/or Azure environment in order to establish a connection for Power BI. At the end of the process, the Template file (Dashboard) will be available to download and use.
We will start by installing Power BI Desktop:
- Download Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft download center
- Execute PBIDesktop_x64.msi, click Next
- Accept the license terms and click Next
- Select the Installation Directory and click Next
- Click Install
- Wait for the process to finish and close the installation wizard
Power BI Integration
We will now download and configure the Power BI integration
- Browse to the Github Power BI repo
- Click on the Install Now button
- On the Getting Started pane, click Sign In
- The Office 365 portal pops-up, select your work email account and enter your credential if you’re not already logged-in
- On the Business Platform Solution Template screen, click Accept
- Once back on the Getting Started pane, click on the Download button
- This will download the SCCM-Template.exe file. Once downloaded, launch the executable
- Wait for the process to complete
- The installation wizard will launch in new window, click Next
- On the Login pane, Enter your credentials to connect to the SCCM database. These credentials will also be used to run a Powershell script on a recurring schedule. Click on Validate, then Next
- In the Source pane, enter your SCCM server name, click on Validate, select your Database from the drop-down then Next
- On the Target pane, select your SQL Server, click on Validate, select your Database from the drop-down then Next
- If you are using Azure SQL (which is unlikely for an SCCM installation), check the Using Azure SQL box
- The 5,6,7 and 8 steps will be automatically skipped
- On the Customize pane, select the time you wish to have your scheduled task to be run and the desired Compliance Target number, click on Validate and Next
- Review your choices, enter your email address if desired to receive information about Power BI and click Run
- The installation starts. The initial synchronization pulls data out of Configuration Manager database and pushes the data into the specified SQL Database
- Once the process is completed, you can download the Power BI SCCM Dashboard by clicking on Download Report
- Once downloaded, open the SolutionTemplate.pbix file, it will open in Power BI Desktop
- One last step needs to be done in order for the data to populate. On the top ribbon, click on Edit Query and select Data Source Settings
- Click on any query on the left pane and select Edit Credentials
- Select your preferred credential method and click Connect
- If you have an Encryption Support warning, click OK to accept the unencrypted connection
- If your credential has the Read right on the SCCM database, all the “!” icons will turn to tables icons. This means that the data can be read.
- Click the Apply Changes button on the warning on the top
- The magic happens! Click the Overview pane to validates that the data is shown
Power BI Pro
Optional – If you have a Power BI Pro subscription, you can click the Publish button at the top to save your report in your Power BI portal
That’s it! You are now ready to create reports and dashboard using Power BI. Refer to the product documentation if you need help to start creating.
31 Comments on “How to install and configure SCCM Power BI Dashboard”
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Also there’s no any information that Target database is required to store data for Power BI dashboard and no recommendations how to create it.
There’s an error in the article. On the step named “Source” at the beginning where it is being said that you need to provide SQL server name (in the example it is “sccm2012”). Actually it should be SQL server name + instance name like server\instance.
thanks man, it worked, how to get more reports let windows upgrade status if have 10K+ machines…
I got the latest Template from: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/PowerON-Power-BI-ConfigMgr-0cd61c5f
I get to Source Step and Validate and find the SCCM DB Server and Database, but once i get to the Target Step, i put same information in, it processes then says “No Databases can be found on the server”, i can’t seem to get past the Target Source Step.
Correct URL: https://github.com/Microsoft/BusinessPlatformApps/tree/dev/Source/Apps/Microsoft/Released/Microsoft-SCCMTemplate
Does anyone have a link to the EXE to install the connector?
It seems Microsoft have pulled the Dashboard and all the links are bad, owever, this blog post states they are moving all the Templates to open source and so i do not see why i cannot download them.
Can someone please share the required content?
Thanks.
Sorry, i meant to add this blog post link as per my post……
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-solution-templates-moving-to-open-source/
Are you able to provide a copy of the SCCM-Template.exe which is what Microsoft pulled on Jan. 1st of this year.
Were you able to get a copy of the template?
Any luck getting the exe? I have been trying to set this up, I found the template but its not working. I think I need the exe to install all the other pieces so the template works.
I uninstalled an application and installed a newer version, however, not seeing this being replicated in the dashboard, still showing the old version installed. How do I update or how does the updating feature works?
This is a great article, but it doesn’t explain where the PowerBI desktop should be run. On any client desktop? On the SCCM server? On the SQL server? On a server dedicated for just this job? Does it create a scheduled task for the ETL? How does it work?
Hi, I can connect to the SQL server and view the DBs, but then I get this error: Action Failed Microsoft-CheckSCCMVersion — Error ID:(kdj8rjkvado). We are using SQL 2012 and SCCM 1706. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
I followed the process until after changing the credentials. When I click apply changes the process ends with the following error “Malware – Column ‘threaded’ in Table ‘Malware’ contains a duplicate value ‘268476978’ and this is not allowed for columns on the one side of a many-to-one relationship or for columns that are used as the primary key of a table”. How should I go about this one?
I am having trouble installing this template and am getting “This template requires group policy “Network access: Do not allow storage of passwords and credentials for network authentication” be disabled’.
This is not something the network folks are going to do so I am wondering if there is a workaround?
It seems the system inventory is not getting updated. like for example i have uninstalled a few software from certain desktops. But they still seen in the report
Hi,
I followed this guide and successfully set up the SCCM solutions template. We would like to use the SCCM Solutions Template, but we would rather use an on-prem database than the Azure db (used with a MSDN subscription, caps out at 50 DTU every month). First, if I connect Power BI to the SCCM db, do we need another database (in addition to the CM_SITE database) to accommodate Power BI? If so, how can I tell what kind of resources we need? It’s hard for me to determine since Azure calculates everything in DTU. Any help is appreciated! -G
Hi All,
Is there a way to import Windows Update Groups?
Thanks
Gary
Hello, what are the steps to upgrade from a previous template version?
Much Appreciated.
The link for the template now seems to be broken.
Has the template been pulled for some reason?
Anywhere else I can get it from?
Why are the Source and Target DBs the same?
Can I set the Source to be a Different DB on another server?
I didn’t try to install it yet.
Sorry, typo, I meant.
Can the Target be on a separate SQL server?
Paul: Try to run PowerBI Desktop as an administrator user. (Right click Power BI Desktop > Run as administrator)
I know it’s not intuitive, but we experienced the same issue on several machines, and this seems to work.
Hi Benoit,
Thanks for all your tips!
Just one question, if I want to reload information from CM Server?
Thank you!
Gael
Try run Power BI as administrator.
Dennis that did it. Thanks for the tip!
Paul
Everything worked until I got to the step where you click “Edit Credentials”. I put in My credentials and clicked connect. When it went back to the Query Editor screen this error was there:
“DataSource.Error: An error happened while reading data from the provider: ‘Could not load file or assembly ‘System.EnterpriseServices, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a’ or one of its dependencies. Either a required impersonation level was not provided, or the provided impersonation level is invalid. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070542)’
Details:
DataSourceKind=SQL
DataSourcePath=sccm;CM_MON”
This isn’t a credential issue because I did it again typing in the wrong credentials and it told me that my credentials were incorrect so that tells me that it is authenticating ok but then running into a different issue.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Paul
Paul, I had this issue also. It is a permissions issue. I had to log onto the SQL server, and give myself permissions for the new db.