Home > Insights Reporting Tool > Insights Report Developer: Producing Analytic Reports
Before you even log into Power BI to start creating your report, you need to think through what you want to report on and what the data points are. Begin by collecting all necessary information to design your analytic. Ensure you have access to design documents, system transactions and screens in CORE to look at field names, and even example report layouts that can give you ideas on what you want your report to present, look like, and how you want it formatted.
Data to Collect:
Report Number and Name
Legacy Report Name and Screenshot (if this report is replacing an old version of a report)
CORE transaction or table screens and field names
Description of what business need the report will be used for
Semantic Model (a.k.a., report universe) to be used
The frequency the report will be run
Report Fields you initially want to include
Parameters you want to use to run your report – how do you want people to narrow down the data results?
Ideas on any formulas or derivations that might need to be built into your queries
Does your report need to present data in a tabular format only, or do you need / want to present it in a graphical representation as well? If you want a graph, which type best represents the data you need to show?
As a report developer, sign into the web version of Power BI: Sign in | Microsoft Power BI to create or modify an Analytic report.
Enter your State network ID in the Email field to log in on this first screen, and then click the Submit button.
On the next page that appears, ensure your State network ID is shown at the top (above the Enter password section) and then enter your State network password, and click the Sign in button.
If this is your first time logging in, you will need to set up your Microsoft Authenticator app. Follow the on-screen instructions to move through the setup process. If you already use Microsoft Authenticator, this will be an additional account within it.
If this is not your first time logging in, you will be taken directly to the Power BI home page after entering your password and the Microsoft Authenticator app validates your credentials.
From the Power BI Home page, select the Workspaces option from the bottom of the left-hand navigation menu. This will pop out a Workspaces menu from which you can select the workspace you want to create in. Your available options for Workspaces may be different or less than shown below.
Workspace naming convention follows the pattern (without spaces or brackets):
[ 1. hosted location ] [ 2. environment ] _ [ 3. workspace ]
As an example, for the hosted location of acdscodpa, environment of ndp, and workspace of core, you would have: acdscodpandp_core.
Every workspace will always start with acdcscodpa as the hosted location.
Then, for the environment, the name might include 'npd' for non-production environment or 'prd' for production environment.
Finally, you will see the agency name abbreviation at the end to indicate what agency the workspace belongs to, like cdhe, core, cst, etc. You will only have access to the workspace if you work for that agency.
Once on the landing page for the workspace, select the New Item button to begin creating a new Analytic report.
This will pop out a panel from the right side of the screen, where you can select the Report option. You will always select the Report option to start a new report. Feel free to explore some of the other items featured in Power BI, but be aware that these are not integrated to be utilized for publication in CORE directly.
Click the Pick a published semantic model quicklink box to select one of the CORE semantic models to use for data. If you pick one of the other data provider options (e.g., Excel, CSV, or Paste or manually enter data options) you will not be able to publish your report to the shared workspaces for your agency users to view and run your report.
After you click the Pick a published semantic model quicklink box, a pop-up window will open for you to select the semantic model (formerly called a “universe” in infoAdvantage) to use, which will provide the data for your report.
The left-hand Explorer bar can toggle open for you to select a particular data set, which will help you narrow data models down by either HRM (for payroll and HR reporting) or everything else (for Financial, PB, and VSS reporting).
After you select a semantic model, the greyed-out Connect button at the bottom right of the screen will change to give you the option for Power BI to either Auto-create a report for you or for you to Create a blank report.