Embedding a Stream video in Power BI service

Today I will be showing you how to embed a stream video in the power bi service.

I had an idea to do videos on how to navigate new reports, that I will send to my users once I’ve deployed a new report, or updated an existing one.  What I wanted to do was have the video embedded on a report page.  But unfortunately, that posed a problem because there are only certain ways to do that.

First, the video needs to be uploaded to an online video streaming site.

I did not feel comfortable uploading my video to an open video platform, simply because the report contains actual business data, and I wasn’t sure that my video would be protected.  I could probably have done some more research, but I didn’t feel comfortable and decided to look for alternatives.  There is a very helpful video I saw that you can use Azure storage to upload your video but to be honest, I don’t have much experience working with Azure, and also had no account, so I kept searching.

I had used Microsoft Stream for my videos in the past.  As an extra tip for my fellow report creators, I would have a Teams meeting with myself where I would share my screen and record the meeting.  This would then be my deploy video, which I would upload to Stream, and could share it with everyone in the business or certain users, as we are on Office 365.

My ultimate resolve would be to embed a Stream video in my report.  But no, that is not possible either with Stream.  You can however embed a Stream video in a Power BI Dashboard tile.  Eureka!!

This was then what I did.

Create a video

This is your own design, which ever tool you want to use, with editing without editing, that’s up to you, in the end you should have an MP4 file, that you upload to Microsoft Stream.

Once you have your report uploaded and perhaps you want to restrict viewers, set all of that up.  Get the iframe link.

Great.

Add Dashboard tile

I you don’t already have a dashboard in the Power BI service you will need to create one.  I could not find a way to do this without Pinning a visual first, from any report, and then just deleting it later.  Just remember that the Dashboard is saved in the Workspace from which you pin a visual.

Okay, now that you have decided where you want your video, you will simply add a tile.

Adding Video to Power BI Service

You will not choose Video here, because as you see, it will only allow you to use YouTube or Vimeo video.  No no, that’s not what you want.  Choose web content instead.  Then you simply paste your video link from Stream.  And you will see you video appear and ready to watch on the Power BI service.

I actually added it to the APP my users were viewing there report in. Now I can use that Dashboard to upload all future videos for reports in that APP.  More about embedding in Power BI here.

I hope you found this helpful. This was the best solution I could find to get a Stream video embedded on the Power BI service.  Read more blog from DataBear here.