Copilot, the generative AI assistant, has made its way into Power BI, revolutionizing the way users create reports, write DAX measures, and explore data. In this detailed article, we’ll explore how to enable Copilot in Power BI, understand its capabilities, and leverage it effectively within Power BI Desktop.
What Is Copilot?
Copilot is an AI-powered feature that assists Power BI users in various tasks, including report creation, DAX measure formulation, and enhancing Q&A experiences.
It leverages large language models to understand natural language queries and generate relevant content.
Required License to use Copilot in Power BI
To use Copilot in Power BI Desktop, you need to consider the following licensing requirements:
- Power BI Pro License:
- Copilot is available for Power BI Pro users.
- If you have a Power BI Pro license, you can enable and use Copilot within Power BI Desktop.
- Power BI Premium License:
- If you have a Power BI Premium license, you can also use Copilot.
- Copilot is available for both Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) and Power BI Premium capacities.
Prerequisites to Enable Copilot in Power BI Desktop
1) Tenant Settings
To can use Copilot in Power BI, you have first to make sure that the below settings have been enabled in your Tenant Settings:
- Q&A settings.
- Quick measure suggestions.
Enable Q&A settings in Power BI Tenant Settings
- Sign in to Microsoft Fabric using your admin account credentials.
- Select Fabric settings, and then from the menu, choose Admin portal.
- In the Admin portal, select Tenant settings.
- Scroll down the page to “Q&A settings” and turn on Enabled then click on “Apply”.
Please note that it may take up to 15 minutes for the recently made tenant settings changes to take effect.
Enable Quick measure suggestions in Power BI Admin Portal
- Sign in to Microsoft Fabric using your admin account credentials.
- Select Fabric settings, and then from the menu, choose Admin portal.
- In the Admin portal, select Tenant settings.
- Scroll down the page to “Quick measure suggestions”.
- Enable “Allow quick measure suggestions (preview)” and “Allow user data to leave their geography“.
Besides the above Tenant Settings, Your administrator needs to Enable Copilot In Microsoft Fabric?
2) Power BI Desktop Options – Preview Features
Last setting, that you have to do in your Power BI Desktop is enabling the “Quick measure suggestions” preview features by doing the following:
Enabling Copilot in Power BI Desktop
- Launch Power BI Desktop.
- Go to the File tab.
- Select Options and settings, and then click Options.
- Navigate to the Preview features section.
- Check the Quick measure suggestions checkbox (Copilot relies on this feature).
- Click OK to save the changes.
Don’t forget to Close and reopen Power BI Desktop to apply the settings.
Creating DAX Measures with Copilot in Power BI
It’s ease of cake now to create a DAX measure based on your data modeling by doing the following:
- Open Power BI Desktop.
- Go to the Modeling tab.
- Click Quick measure.
- Select “Suggestion with Copilot” but to can use this feature, you have to sign in with your account.
Either your admin disabled Q&A (which is required for this feature to work) or Q&A is not supported
Once you sign in, with your account, you may get the below “Suggestion with Copilot” disabled with this message “Either your admin disabled Q&A (which is required for this feature to work) or Q&A is not supported“.
In this case, you have to do the following:
- Make sure that the Q&A is enabled in Admin Portal as mentioned in the above Tenant Settings.
- Close the Power BI Desktop and Reopen it again.
Great, the Copilot is now ready to use to write a measure based on your data modeling.
Write a measure formula using Copilot in Power BI
- Describe the measure you need in natural language (e.g., “Sum of sales by region”).
- Click on the Generate button, to get suggested measures with a preview and a well formatted formula as stated below.
Keep in mind,
Copilot relies on the power of the Microsoft Cloud to process your requests. To ensure it works smoothly, here’s what you’ll need:
- An active internet connection: This allows Copilot to send requests from Power BI Desktop to the cloud for processing.
- Sign in to Power BI with your company account: Using your company credentials ensures you have access to the resources Copilot needs to function within your organization.
By meeting these requirements, you’ll unlock the full potential of Copilot and its cloud-powered capabilities.
Conclusion
Copilot empowers Power BI users by automating tasks, enhancing report creation, and simplifying DAX measures. Enable Copilot, explore its capabilities, and unlock the full potential of generative AI in your data analysis journey.
