How To Add External Tools In Power Bi

How to add external tools in Power BI

Adding external tools in Power BI allows you to extend its functionalities by integrating additional tools or services. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. Open Power BI Desktop.
2. Go to the “File” menu and select “Options and settings”.
3. From the options panel, choose “Options”.
4. Under the “Preview features” section, enable the “External Tools” option.
5. Click on “OK” to save the changes.
6. Now, you will see a new “External Tools” item in the Power BI Desktop toolbar.
7. Click on “External Tools” and choose “Edit External Tools”.
8. In the “External Tools” dialog box, click on “Add” to add a new tool.
9. Provide a name for the tool and specify its path. You can either use an executable file or a script file.
10. You can also add command line arguments if required.
11. Click on “OK” to save the tool.

Now, your external tool is added to Power BI. You can access it by clicking on “External Tools” in the toolbar and selecting the desired tool.

Example:

Let’s consider an example of adding an external tool called “Data Profiler” which analyzes the data quality.

1. Download and install the “Data Profiler” tool on your machine.
2. Open Power BI Desktop and follow the above steps to enable external tools.
3. In the “External Tools” dialog box, click on “Add” and provide the name as “Data Profiler” and the path to the “DataProfiler.exe” file.
4. Click on “OK” to add the tool.

Now, whenever you need to analyze the data quality, you can simply click on “External Tools” and select “Data Profiler” to launch the tool.