Microsoft hints at future of Power BI + Dynamics CRM Online connected experience in new preview

Microsoft released a new Power BI preview on December 18 that added new dashboards, visualizations, a native iPad app and live "hybrid" connectivity to on-premise SQL Server Analysis Services tabular models. It also added support for integration with popular third party solutions like Marketo, zendesk, Salesforce, and GitHub.

Dynamics CRM Online and Power BI have been positioned together for some time, most recently with the October 2014 bundled pricing. And while it's always been possible to work with CRM Online data in Power Query, Power Pivot, and Power View, the pairing has never become what the marketing team would like people to call "seamless".

So will the new preview deliver any real improvements? For a nicely balanced look at the updates, always alert Microsoft MVP Jukka Niiranen has a new walkthrough of the preview's CRM Online connector. As he discovered, the updates are promising but limited. New Dynamics CRM Online dashboard capabilities offer hints as to how Microsoft might eventually overcome some of the factors that still prevent CRM Online customers from easily embracing the potential of Power BI.

The Power BI preview includes a pre-built connector that uses a CRM Online organization's OData feed "to create a descriptive model, with all the entities and measures needed such as Accounts, Activities, Opportunities, Product, Leads, Users and more," according to a knowledge base article posted by the Power BI team that Niiranen stumbled across.

Among the interesting changes introduced, the new Power BI preview offers a mechanism for automating data refreshes for dashboards on a daily ...