Dynamics 365 Business Central offers three distinct ways to get its data into Power BI, and the right one depends on how much reporting you need and how far you plan to scale: the built-in Power BI reports for quick, out-of-the-box visuals; the native Power BI connector for custom reports without leaving Business Central’s data model; and a BC2ADLS-to-Microsoft-Fabric pipeline for organizations that need to combine BC data with other systems or report at real scale. Here’s how each works.
1. Built-in Power BI Reports in Business Central
Business Central ships with a set of embedded Power BI reports directly inside list pages and role centers — no setup beyond connecting your Power BI account. They’re fast to turn on and good for standard views (sales, purchasing, finance), but you can’t easily customize them beyond what Microsoft has already built, and they’re limited to the data Business Central exposes in those specific views.
2. The Native Power BI Connector for Business Central
Power BI has a dedicated “Dynamics 365 Business Central” data connector (Get Data → more → Business Central) that pulls directly from BC’s OData web services. This is the right choice when you need a custom report — a dashboard combining sales and inventory in a way Microsoft’s built-in reports don’t — but don’t yet need to blend BC with data from other systems. It’s a direct, live connection with no intermediate data store.
3. BC2ADLS + Microsoft Fabric (For Scale and Custom Data Models)
When reporting needs outgrow a live connector — large data volumes, complex transformations, or combining Business Central with your CRM, e-commerce platform, or other ERPs — the more durable approach is exporting BC data to Azure Data Lake Storage via Microsoft’s BC2ADLS extension, then modeling it in Microsoft Fabric before it reaches Power BI. This adds setup work up front, but gives you a proper data platform instead of a single report: version-controlled models, room to add new data sources without rebuilding, and reporting performance that doesn’t degrade as your data grows. We’ve written a full setup guide for BC2ADLS here.
Which Method Should You Use?
Use the built-in reports if you need something today and standard views are enough. Use the native connector if you need one or two custom reports off Business Central data alone. Move to BC2ADLS + Fabric once you’re combining multiple data sources, hitting performance limits, or building reporting that needs to scale with the business — which is where we spend most of our time with clients.
Need Help Choosing?
Polaris Insights builds Power BI and Microsoft Fabric dashboards on top of Business Central for supply chain, sales, production, inventory, and financial reporting. Get in touch and we’ll help you figure out which approach fits your data and where it needs to go next.