Power BI introduces real-time dashboard tiles to visualize streaming data

Microsoft’s Power BI software is adding real-time streaming of data to its list of analytical features today. Power BI program manager Sirui Sun announced that Power BI customers can now use a preview version of real-time data streaming to Power BI that allows users to “quickly gain insights from data of all shapes, sizes, and velocities.”

The move to enabling real-time data streaming comes off the back of Microsoft’s analysis of a growing IoT and social media trends that lend themselves to quicker information monitoring. As more IoT devices, sensor hubs, and social media accounts pull in various data at almost lightning speed, service providers are seeking to not only monitor the data more accurately but respond in accordance.

Recently, we’ve seen an explosion of powerful real-time use cases – from factories using IoT sensors to monitor their equipment, to media agencies monitoring their social media campaigns as they go viral.”

Power BI’s new real-time dashboard tile preview is intended to be a lightweight application that fits snugly in a customer’s dashboard allowing quick access to up-to-the-minute data. Similar to other Power BI controls, creating a real-time tile can be as granular or templated as a customer desires with the entire process taking only minutes to produce.

Sirui offers a step by step process on how to create a new real-time tile that explains the getting started in the Power BI REST APIs developed in PubNub and how customers can navigate the new services once completed.

To add a streaming dataset via PubNub, choose “Add streaming dataset” and select the PubNub option. In the next dialogue, provide your PubNub Dataset name, Sub-key, Channel name, and PAM Auth Key (if applicable). if you’re not sure what these are, sign into your PubNub account, and go to the PubNub Admin portal.”

On top of the new real-time tile preview, the Power BI team has also made some improvements to its existing Power BI REST APIs. The new set of improvements is intended to work in conjunction with the new real-time preview, thus making the entire experience easier to manage as a whole. Creating a streaming data set now seems to be even easier than before.

For anyone interested in taking the real-time dashboard and tile for a spin, the Power BI team is offering sample streaming datasets at GitHub. New to the entire process, but still interested? Sign up for either the Power BI’s newsletter or visit the Microsoft Power BI blog for more information.