03 Mar
Building A Power BI Chatbot Using Power Virtual Agents
Have you ever wondered if accessing data from Power BI can be made faster? And manually skimming through various dashboards and filtering the unwanted information might not be the only way to get the required data? If yes, then integrating chatbots with Power BI might just be what you are looking for. Sounds interesting, right?
Chatbots add an element of conversation to your Power BI experience. Through text or voice commands, they help fetch information quickly and send key metrics, reports, and dashboards to your email or messaging app. In this way, they make data consumption easier within your organization.
This blog will discuss the current challenges in accessing Power BI data, the benefits of chatbot-Power BI integration, and why you must consider building your Power BI chatbots using Power Virtual Agents (PVA).
Power BI: Challenges to accessing data
Managers and leaders need to track and analyze critical business data at the right time for informed decision-making.
Imagine being asked for a significant business metric that you don’t have access to in the midst of your client meeting. As discussed above, traditional methods would require you to open your Power BI app, navigate through dashboards, and filter the unnecessary details to generate the desired number. All this is not only time-consuming but may also leave your client with a sour impression.
Conclusion – All your employees must always have the required data at their fingertips!
Many organizations hire staff exclusively to take screenshots of reports and send them to managers. However, the images are neither interactive nor updated. In such a scenario, chatbots integrated within your BI app help employees conduct natural language conversations via text or voice to get the required data instantly.
For example, the employee may ask, “What were the sales for product X in 2019?”
Or, he may request the bot to show a graph of operating expenses for the last five years. Additionally, the employee might say, “Please email me this graph.”
In short, AI-enabled chatbots integrated with your Power BI app can conduct conversations with your employees, fetch the required data from the back end, and respond via text or rich multimedia formats, including images, graphs, pie-charts, etc.
Additionally, the separate Q&A feature that comes with Power BI is limited in the sense that it delivers search results solely on the basis of the exact keywords used in the search. However, a Power BI chatbot uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology to produce results based on the employee’s intent and the identified entities and does not limit itself to keywords.
Benefits of chatbot-Power BI integration
1. Reduced manual effort increases productivity
With a Power BI chatbot, employees no longer need to scroll through manually and filter dashboards to get the data they need. They simply need to request the required data, and the bot will draw it from the backend.
2. Personalized information
No employee is burdened with unnecessary data as the bot can send customized information from the same report/dashboard based on an employee’s role, geography, etc.
3. Flexibility
Employees can access information anytime and anywhere from their smartphones through commonly used enterprise messaging apps. The bot can respond in text or use rich visual media like graphs and images, as seen above. Depending on the user’s request, it can send charts and links to reports or graphs on his/her email id. Thus, there is flexibility in how the staff views information.
Users can also set alerts when certain KPIs cross a predetermined threshold or show a significant deflection from the normal.
What is Power Virtual Agents (PVA)?
Before delving further into building a Power BI chatbot using Power Virtual Agents (PVA), let’s first understand what PVA is.
Power Virtual Agents (PVA) is a low-code SaaS platform by Microsoft that helps build and deploy chatbots in the shortest span of time. Since it’s hosted on Microsoft Azure Cloud Services, organizations need not invest heavily into providing a conducive infrastructure to maintain the chatbots.
With its graphical interface and minimalistic coding requirements, PVA allows both pro and citizen developers alike to build bots, making it user-friendly for all. Moreover, chatbot performance can be continually monitored on an AI-driven dashboard and improved for higher returns.
Most importantly, since both Power Virtual Agents and Power BI are part of Microsoft’s Power platform, organizations need not depend on external vendors for chatbot development and enjoy a seamless integration experience.
Advantages of building your Power BI chatbot on Power Virtual Agents
1. Lowers development costs
Recruiting professional software developers proves heavier on the cost side. However, even novice developers can quickly build and deploy a chatbot with low-code development, reducing development costs by up to 90%.
2. Faster chatbot deployment
Since PVA is a low-code platform, bots can be deployed within a matter of a few weeks. Moreover, it promotes innovation as domain-experts can develop their own bots without depending on coders.
3. Integrates with existing data systems and apps
PVA integrates with existing cloud-based and on-premise systems and third-party apps, such as your CRM and LoB apps, giving organizations a single-window view into their data.
4. Democratizes chatbot development
By allowing employees with little coding knowledge to develop chatbots, domain experts across functions and departments can customize and build their bots without limiting development to a core team or group of individuals.
How can Acuvate help?
Indeed, Power BI chatbots help decision-makers and leaders access the right data at the right time, accelerate decision-making, and build competitive advantage. Moreover, developing your Power BI bots with Power Virtual Agents, Microsoft’s low-code bot-building platform, allows organizations to deploy their bots quickly and seamlessly. Since Power BI and Power Virtual Agents are a part of Microsoft’s Power Platform, organizations can easily leverage the same tech stack and need not rely on external support.
As a Microsoft Gold Partner, we at Acuvate help clients develop Power BI chatbots with Microsoft Power Virtual Agents (PVA) and significantly reduce the time needed to access the required information.
To know more about our offering, please feel free to schedule a personalized consultation with our Microsoft and chatbot experts.
Abhishek is the AI & Automation Practice Head at Acuvate and brings with him 17+ years of strong expertise across the Microsoft stack. He has consulted with clients globally to provide solutions on technologies such as Cognitive Services, Azure, RPA, SharePoint & Office 365. He has worked with clients across multiple industry domains including Retail & FMCG, Government, BFSI, Manufacturing and Telecom.
Abhishek Shanbhag