Business Central Dashboard Examples

Most Business Central dashboard examples online are screenshot galleries. They skip the two questions that decide whether a dashboard gets used: what does Microsoft already give you, and what should you build that it does not?

This post answers both: first the Power BI reports Microsoft ships, grouped by who reads them, then five generic dashboards that sit on top and turn those reports into a list of things to do today. Every Microsoft claim links to its Microsoft Learn source.

Where Business Central dashboards come from

Microsoft publishes Power BI apps for nine functional areas: Finance, Inventory, Inventory Valuation, Manufacturing, Projects, Purchasing, Sales, Subscription Billing and Sustainability. Each app has two parts: a connector (AL) app that is preinstalled with Business Central, and a Power BI template app, installed from Microsoft Marketplace, that holds the semantic model and reports (Install Power BI apps for Business Central).

The reports do not have to live in a separate tab. Role Centers carry a Power BI reports part, and on several key list pages a Power BI FactBox filters to whichever row you select (Working with Power BI reports in Business Central). A report that follows the selected customer or item can be much narrower than one that has to stand on its own.

Examples Microsoft already ships, by who reads them

Microsoft's Finance app page splits its audience three ways: leadership reading KPIs, managers reading trends, and staff working from transaction-level reports. The examples below follow that split. Report names are from Microsoft's list of reports in every app.

For leadership

• Financial Overview: a snapshot of revenue, profitability and financial stability.
• Liquidity KPIs: current ratio, quick ratio and cash ratio over time.
• EBITDA: EBITDA and EBIT, with operating revenue and expenses for context.
• Purchases Overview: purchase totals, including amounts received but not invoiced.

For managers

• Budget Comparison: G/L budget against actuals, month by month.
• Sales by Customer and Sales by Salesperson: sales amount, cost, gross profit and gross profit margin.
• Customer Retention Overview: repeat purchase behaviour and churn over time.
• Vendor Quality Analysis: return rate, discount amount, and item and spend reliance by vendor.

For the people doing the work

• Aged Receivables (Back Dating): customer balances in aging buckets, aged by document, due or posting date, with a bucket size you choose.
• Item Availability: inventory alongside gross requirements, scheduled receipts and planned production.
• Inventory by Lot, Inventory by Serial No. and Bin Contents: stock at the level a warehouse works at.
• General Ledger Entries: G/L entries sliceable by all eight shortcut dimensions.

For many businesses this is a good first set. Microsoft says the apps "are free to install and use", with a paid Power BI licence as the one requirement (Working with Power BI reports in Business Central).

What those examples have in common

Every report above describes what happened. That is not a flaw: a template has to work for every business, so it cannot know any one business's rules. Microsoft's own Finance app scenario shows the pattern. An accounts receivable clerk opens Aged Receivables, reads the buckets beyond 30 days, and decides who to chase. The report supplies the numbers; the reader supplies the judgement.

Five dashboard examples worth building on top

A dashboard that gets opened every morning usually does one more step: it applies the business's own rules and hands the reader a short, ranked list. These five are generic patterns, not descriptions of any company. Each starts from data the free apps already model and adds a rule someone at the business has to agree.

The right-hand column is the real work. Rules written down and agreed make a dashboard trustworthy; rules applied in someone's head each morning do not. They also change, so they belong in the model where they can be seen.

Before you build: three facts from Microsoft's documentation

• Licences. Microsoft lists Power BI Pro for the users who install the apps, refresh the data and access the reports, with Premium capacity as the alternative, and states that "the free license alternative does not work with the Power BI apps" (Power BI apps FAQ).
• One company per app. "The Power BI apps currently work per company in Business Central" (same FAQ). Several companies means several installs; see multi-company reporting.
• Dimensions. The models read dimensions from the PowerBI Flat Dim. Set Entry table, kept current by the Update Dim. Set Entries job queue entry. If that job has not run, dimension slicers come back empty (same FAQ).

Start from Microsoft's models, not a blank file

You do not need to build any of the five examples from scratch. Microsoft describes each app as including "a semantic model with star schemas that support the reports, as well as KPIs implemented as measures", and says its documentation might serve as a reference architecture for your own models (Power BI apps/reports for functional areas). The .pbix source files can be downloaded from an installed app, from version 26.2 for most apps and 27.0 for Purchasing, Projects and Sales (FAQ).

If you customise them, plan for upgrades first: Microsoft warns that updating a template app can overwrite earlier changes. Customising the templates covers how to keep your changes, and the Power BI for Business Central guide quotes and links every limit Microsoft documents.

For Microsoft partners

If your clients are asking for the worklist rather than the report, and you do not keep a reporting bench, that layer is what Palavir builds for Microsoft partners: the model, the measures and the pages, in the client's tenant, delivered under your brand.