Power BI with Dynamics 365: Build an ERP Dashboard Management Can Use
A Practical 2026 Guide to Turning ERP Data into Management Decisions
Your ERP already contains a lot of business data.
Sales orders.
Invoices.
Purchases.
Inventory.
Customers.
Vendors.
Production.
Receivables.
Payables.
Projects.
Financial transactions.
But there is an important question:
Can management actually use that data to make faster decisions?
Many businesses have an ERP system but still depend heavily on Excel reports, manually prepared MIS files and department-wise spreadsheets.
The CFO asks:
“What is our current profitability?”
The sales director asks:
“Which opportunities are likely to close?”
The operations head asks:
“Which products are running low?”
The CEO asks:
“Which business areas are growing and which are slowing down?”
Someone then spends hours preparing a report.
This is where Power BI with Dynamics 365 can create a different management experience.
Microsoft Power BI can connect with Dynamics 365 Business Central data to create interactive reports and dashboards, with capabilities for drill-down, filtering and customized visualizations. Reports can also be embedded into Business Central so users can access analytics without leaving the ERP experience.
The goal, however, should not be:
“Let's build a Power BI dashboard.”
The better goal is:
“Let's give management the information they need to make better decisions.”
Quick Answer: What Is Power BI with Dynamics 365?
Power BI with Dynamics 365 combines business application data with Microsoft's business intelligence platform to create interactive dashboards, reports and management insights.
For Dynamics 365 Business Central, Power BI can use ERP data to analyze areas such as:
Finance
Sales
Purchasing
Inventory
Manufacturing
Projects
Customer activity
Profitability
Cash-flow-related metrics
Operational performance
Microsoft provides Power BI apps and reports for Business Central functional areas including Finance, Sales, Purchasing, Inventory, Manufacturing, Projects, Subscription Billing and Sustainability.
Why ERP Dashboards Often Fail
A dashboard can look impressive and still be useless.
Common problems include:
Too many charts
No clear business questions
Outdated data
Incorrect KPIs
Duplicate metrics
No drill-down
Poor data quality
No ownership
No action connected to the insight
For example:
A dashboard showing Revenue = ₹10 Crore may look useful.
But management may actually need to know:
Which customers generated it?
Which products generated it?
What is the gross margin?
How much is outstanding?
Which regions are growing?
What changed compared with last month?
A good dashboard answers business questions—not simply displays numbers.
What Should an ERP Management Dashboard Show?
A management dashboard should provide a hierarchy of information:
Level 1 — Executive Summary
What is happening?
Level 2 — Business Drivers
Why is it happening?
Level 3 — Exceptions
Where is something going wrong?
Level 4 — Details
Which transaction, customer, product or department caused it?
This allows management to move from:
What? → Why? → Where? → What should we do?
1. Executive ERP Dashboard
The first dashboard should provide a high-level view of the business.
Possible KPIs:
Revenue
Gross margin
Operating expenses
Receivables
Payables
Cash position
Sales pipeline
Inventory value
Order backlog
Profitability
The dashboard should also show trends.
For example:
Revenue this month
vs.
Previous month
vs.
Same period last year
Management usually needs the trend—not just the current number.
2. CFO Finance Dashboard
Finance leaders need more than revenue.
A CFO dashboard can include:
Revenue
Current revenue
Revenue growth
Revenue by business unit
Revenue by product
Profitability
Gross profit
Gross margin
Operating expenses
Profit trend
Receivables
Outstanding amount
Aging
Overdue invoices
Customer concentration
Payables
Outstanding vendors
Aging
Upcoming payments
Financial Performance
Actual vs budget
Monthly trends
Business-unit performance
Business Central already provides financial reporting capabilities, while Power BI can provide interactive visual analysis and dashboards across business data.
3. Sales Performance Dashboard
Sales management needs to know more than total revenue.
A useful sales dashboard can show:
Sales revenue
Sales target
Target achievement
Pipeline value
Won opportunities
Lost opportunities
Average deal size
Sales by salesperson
Sales by product
Sales by geography
New customers
Repeat customers
Management should be able to answer:
Who is performing?
What is selling?
Where are we growing?
Where are we losing opportunities?
What is likely to happen next?
4. Sales Pipeline Dashboard
For businesses using Dynamics 365 Sales alongside ERP systems, the pipeline dashboard becomes particularly important.
Show:
Leads → Opportunities → Quotes → Orders
Useful KPIs:
Open opportunities
Pipeline value
Pipeline by stage
Pipeline by salesperson
Expected close date
Win rate
Sales cycle
Stalled opportunities
This connects CRM activity with management reporting.
The result is a more complete view of:
Potential Revenue → Confirmed Revenue → Actual Revenue
5. Inventory Dashboard
Inventory can tie up significant working capital.
A management inventory dashboard should answer:
What do we have?
What is moving?
What is not moving?
What are we running out of?
Possible KPIs:
Total inventory value
Stock quantity
Low-stock items
Stock-outs
Slow-moving items
Fast-moving items
Inventory by warehouse
Inventory by product category
Inventory turnover
Business Central has dedicated Power BI apps for inventory and inventory valuation, providing a starting point for analytics in these areas.
6. Manufacturing Dashboard
Manufacturing businesses need operational visibility.
A manufacturing dashboard could include:
Production orders
Production output
Production variance
Capacity utilization
Machine/work-center performance
Material availability
Production backlog
Scrap
Production cost
On-time production
The dashboard should help management identify exceptions.
For example:
Production order delayed
↓
Material unavailable
↓
Purchase order delayed
↓
Customer delivery risk
This is more useful than simply showing production volume.
Microsoft lists a Business Central Power BI app for Manufacturing as part of its functional-area Power BI apps.
7. Purchasing Dashboard
Procurement management can use Power BI to monitor:
Purchase value
Purchase orders
Vendor performance
Purchase price trends
Open purchase orders
Delayed orders
Spend by category
Spend by vendor
Purchase commitments
Management questions can include:
Which vendors account for the most spend?
Which purchase prices are increasing?
Which purchase orders are delayed?
Which suppliers are critical to operations?
8. Accounts Receivable Dashboard
Cash collection is critical for many businesses.
An AR dashboard should make outstanding money visible.
Possible metrics:
Total receivables
Current receivables
Overdue receivables
Aging
Customer-wise outstanding
Collection trend
Days sales outstanding
Top overdue accounts
A useful dashboard should allow the finance team to move from:
Total overdue
to:
Customer
to:
Invoice
to:
Required action
This is where drill-down becomes valuable.
9. Customer Profitability Dashboard
Revenue doesn't always equal profitability.
A customer generating ₹1 Crore of revenue may not be as valuable as a customer generating ₹60 Lakh with better margins and lower service costs.
A customer profitability dashboard could analyze:
Revenue
Gross margin
Discount
Product mix
Service cost
Outstanding balance
Order frequency
Customer segment
This can help management understand:
Which customers create revenue?
and:
Which customers create profitable revenue?
10. Product Profitability Dashboard
The same principle applies to products.
A product dashboard can show:
Sales
Units sold
Revenue
Gross margin
Discount
Inventory
Returns
Cost trends
Management can then identify:
High-revenue / high-margin products
High-revenue / low-margin products
Low-revenue / high-margin products
Low-revenue / low-margin products
That can support pricing, product and inventory decisions.
11. Branch and Location Dashboard
Businesses operating across multiple locations can use Power BI to compare performance.
For example:
Ahmedabad
Mumbai
Delhi
Bengaluru
Pune
Management can compare:
Revenue
Profitability
Customers
Inventory
Sales
Expenses
Receivables
This helps leadership identify geographic performance differences.
12. Multi-Company ERP Dashboard
For organizations operating multiple legal entities or companies, consolidated visibility can become important.
Microsoft's Business Central Power BI documentation notes that Power BI can support dashboards and reports that combine data from different companies in Business Central.
A group dashboard could show:
Company A
Company B
Company C
↓
Group Revenue
Group Profit
Group Receivables
Group Inventory
This can provide management with a consolidated business view while retaining entity-level analysis.
13. Connect Dynamics 365 Data with Other Business Data
ERP data is important.
But management decisions may require more than ERP data.
For example:
ERP + CRM + Marketing + Customer Service + External Data
A broader Power BI architecture can combine multiple data sources where appropriate.
Possible sources include:
Dynamics 365
Business Central
CRM
Excel
SQL databases
APIs
E-commerce platforms
Other business applications
This can help create a more complete management information environment.
The architecture should be designed carefully so that metrics have consistent definitions and data ownership.
How Power BI Connects with Business Central
Microsoft documents multiple ways Business Central works with Power BI.
Business Central data can be exposed through APIs or OData web services, and Power BI can use Business Central as a data source. Reports can also be embedded inside Business Central.
A simplified architecture looks like:
Business Central
↓
Connector / API / OData
↓
Power BI Semantic Model
↓
Power BI Reports
↓
Management Dashboard
↓
Business Decision
For Business Central online, Microsoft documents a read-only database replica as part of its Power BI integration architecture for newer reports, helping keep reporting workloads separate from the main transactional workload.
Dashboard Design: Don't Start with Charts
One of the biggest mistakes is opening Power BI and immediately choosing visualizations.
Start with business questions.
For example:
CFO
Are we profitable?
Sales Director
Will we achieve the target?
COO
Are operations on schedule?
Procurement Head
Are supplier delays affecting production?
CEO
Where is the business growing or declining?
Then determine:
Data → KPI → Visualization → Action
KPI Design Framework
Every KPI should have:
Definition
What exactly does the metric mean?
Owner
Who is responsible?
Target
What is the expected result?
Actual
What happened?
Variance
How far are we from the target?
Trend
Is the metric improving or declining?
Action
What should happen next?
Without these elements, a KPI can become a number without context.
Dashboard Layout for Management
A practical executive dashboard can follow this structure.
Row 1 — Executive KPIs
Revenue | Gross Margin | Profit | Receivables | Inventory
Row 2 — Trends
Revenue Trend | Profit Trend | Sales Trend
Row 3 — Business Drivers
Top Customers | Top Products | Sales Regions
Row 4 — Exceptions
Overdue Receivables | Low Stock | Delayed Orders | Margin Issues
Row 5 — Drill-Down
Customer → Product → Transaction
This gives management a clear hierarchy.
What CFOs Should Look For
CFOs should focus on:
Profitability
Revenue
Cash-related indicators
Receivables
Payables
Working capital
Budget vs actual
Business-unit performance
The dashboard should reduce manual MIS preparation and provide a consistent view of financial performance.
What CEOs and Founders Should Look For
Leadership dashboards should focus on:
Growth
Profitability
Cash
Customers
Sales pipeline
Operations
Risks
The CEO dashboard should not contain every metric available in the ERP.
It should contain the metrics that influence strategic decisions.
What COOs Should Look For
COO dashboards should focus on:
Orders
Production
Inventory
Purchasing
Delivery
Capacity
Operational bottlenecks
Exceptions
The question should be:
“Where is the operation getting stuck?”
What CIOs and IT Heads Should Look For
IT leadership should focus on:
Data architecture
Security
Data refresh
Governance
User permissions
Integration
Performance
Data quality
Semantic model design
A dashboard project should have clear ownership for data and metrics.
Power BI Licensing Considerations
Power BI licensing depends on how reports are created, shared and consumed.
Microsoft's current India pricing page lists Power BI Pro at ₹1,165/user/month paid yearly and Power BI Premium Per User at ₹1,995/user/month paid yearly, with GST extra as applicable. Microsoft also notes that actual pricing can vary based on country, currency, regional factors and purchasing arrangements.
Business Central also has Power BI integration capabilities and Microsoft documents different Power BI licensing scenarios for Business Central users.
Therefore, licensing should be evaluated alongside:
Number of creators + Number of viewers + Sharing model + Capacity requirements + Security requirements
Don't select a Power BI license based only on the number shown on a pricing page.
Common Power BI ERP Dashboard Mistakes
1. Too Many KPIs
More data doesn't necessarily mean better decisions.
2. No KPI Definitions
Different departments may calculate the same metric differently.
3. Poor Data Quality
A beautiful dashboard cannot fix incorrect source data.
4. No Ownership
Every important KPI should have a business owner.
5. No Drill-Down
Management needs to move from summary to root cause.
6. No Exception Management
Dashboards should highlight what needs attention.
7. Building Before Requirements
Start with business questions.
8. Ignoring Security
Users should see the data appropriate to their role.
A Practical Power BI + Dynamics 365 Implementation Roadmap
Step 1 — Business Discovery
Identify management questions.
Step 2 — KPI Definition
Define metrics and formulas.
Step 3 — Data Assessment
Identify ERP data sources.
Step 4 — Architecture
Define data model and integration.
Step 5 — Semantic Model
Create structured business data.
Step 6 — Dashboard Design
Build role-specific reports.
Step 7 — Validation
Compare dashboard numbers against ERP records.
Step 8 — Security
Define access by user/role/company where required.
Step 9 — Deployment
Publish and distribute reports.
Step 10 — Optimization
Improve dashboards based on management usage.
Why JetBriks Can Help
JetBriks can help businesses evaluate how Dynamics 365, Business Central, Power BI and Power Platform can work together around business requirements.
Potential services include:
ERP reporting assessment
Power BI dashboard design
Business Central reporting
KPI framework
Financial dashboards
Sales dashboards
Inventory dashboards
Manufacturing dashboards
Management MIS
Data modeling
ERP/CRM analytics
Power Platform integration
The objective is not to build the maximum number of dashboards.
It is to build the right dashboards for the right decisions.
Example: From ERP Data to Management Decision
Imagine a manufacturing company.
Power BI shows:
Inventory value increased 18%.
That is an observation.
Management drills down.
↓
Three products account for most of the increase.
↓
Two are slow-moving.
↓
One has declining sales.
↓
Management reviews purchasing and production planning.
Now the dashboard has become useful.
It has moved from:
Data → Insight → Investigation → Decision
That is the real value of management analytics.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Power BI with Dynamics 365?
Power BI with Dynamics 365 combines Microsoft business application data with Power BI analytics to create interactive reports, dashboards and management insights. Business Central can provide data to Power BI through supported connectors and APIs/OData.
Can Power BI connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central?
Yes. Microsoft provides Business Central integration with Power BI, allowing organizations to create reports and dashboards from Business Central data.
Can Power BI dashboards be embedded in Business Central?
Yes. Microsoft documents the ability to embed Power BI reports, pages or visuals within the Business Central client.
What KPIs should an ERP dashboard include?
Common management KPIs include revenue, profitability, receivables, payables, inventory, sales pipeline, orders, purchasing and operational performance. The exact KPIs should be based on management objectives.
Can Power BI combine data from multiple companies?
Yes. Microsoft documents scenarios where Power BI can combine data from different companies in Business Central for reporting and analysis.
Can Power BI be used for manufacturing dashboards?
Yes. Microsoft provides Business Central Power BI apps for functional areas including Manufacturing, along with Finance, Sales, Purchasing, Inventory and Projects.
Is Power BI better than standard ERP reports?
Not necessarily. They serve different purposes. Power BI is particularly useful for interactive analysis, dashboards, cross-source analysis and management insights, while standard ERP reports can remain useful for detailed operational and transactional reporting.
How much does Power BI cost in India?
Microsoft's current India pricing lists Power BI Pro at ₹1,165/user/month and Power BI Premium Per User at ₹1,995/user/month, paid yearly, with GST extra as applicable. Actual pricing can vary by region, currency and purchasing arrangement.
Can Power BI reduce manual Excel reporting?
It can reduce some repetitive manual reporting work when data sources, models, refresh processes and dashboards are properly designed. The actual benefit depends on the organization's reporting processes and data architecture.
How do we know which ERP dashboard to build first?
Start with the management decisions that matter most. Identify the questions, KPIs, data sources and actions associated with those decisions, then prioritize dashboards around business value.
Final Takeaway
Your ERP already contains valuable business information.
The challenge is turning that information into something management can use.
Power BI + Dynamics 365 can help create that bridge.
But the goal should never be:
“Build more dashboards.”
The goal should be:
“Make better business decisions using trusted data.”
A strong ERP dashboard should help management move from:
What happened?
↓
Why did it happen?
↓
Where did it happen?
↓
What needs attention?
↓
What should we do next?
When Business Central or other Dynamics 365 data is combined with a well-designed Power BI model, role-specific dashboards and clear KPI definitions, ERP data can become a practical management decision system. Microsoft officially supports Business Central–Power BI integration, including data connectivity, reporting, dashboarding and embedded analytics.
Ready to Build a Management ERP Dashboard?
JetBriks can help you assess your existing ERP reporting and identify the dashboards your management team actually needs.
If your business still depends heavily on:
Excel MIS
Manual monthly reports
Multiple departmental spreadsheets
Delayed financial reporting
Difficult inventory analysis
Limited sales visibility
Manual management reporting
it may be time to evaluate a Power BI + Dynamics 365 analytics strategy.
Request a Power BI ERP Dashboard Assessment
Let's identify your top management KPIs, data sources and dashboard priorities.
