A browser showing the report
A PC or stick opens the report under a signed-in account. When that session expires, the morning starts with a sign-in page. And visuals that work on a monitor are often unreadable from a few metres away.
Power BI figures on your displays.
A Power BI report is made for a monitor at arm’s length. On a display in the corridor or on the production floor, you want the four figures that matter, large and clear. Lumicast fetches them from your model with a DAX query and refreshes them every 5 minutes.
Try Team for 14 days. No payment details needed.
Why not put the report on a TV?
The usual ways of getting Power BI onto a big display work well in a meeting room. On a wall, all day long, they run into limits.
Publish to web
The report gets a public link that anyone can open without signing in, including the data in the model behind it. Microsoft warns against sharing confidential information this way.
The figures in your own design
Lumicast requests only the values you need and places them in a page you design yourself. The display never signs in to Microsoft, and the page plays in its playlist alongside your other content.
What you can put on a display.
Anything a DAX query returns as a table. A few examples of what that looks like on a display:
A figure next to its target
Today’s revenue next to the target, or units per line. With ROW() in your query, you get exactly those values back.
A top ten
The best-selling products or the most deals this month. TOPN() returns a list you link to a repeating group: one row per result.
Alongside your other content
Put the figures next to the clock, the weather or posts from Teams. Or let the page alternate with other pages in the same playlist.
Only when the figure matters
Let a page or campaign play only while the data meets a condition, for example when revenue passes the target. Its schedule still applies as well.
A selection for each department
Create a data source with its own query for each department or hall, and give each display the page that belongs to it.
As current as your model
Lumicast runs the query again every 5 minutes. If your model refreshes once an hour in Power BI, the figures change once an hour too.
Type / and pick the field.
You design the page yourself in the editor, start from a template or ask Lumi, our AI designer, for a first draft. Where a figure should go, type / and pick the field from your Power BI data source. Fields keep their Power BI names, such as Sales[Revenue]. From then on, that spot always shows the latest value.
How to link data to a page →How to set it up.
Two of the three steps are for your Power BI administrator. After that, it comes down to pasting a query.
Arrange access
Use a Microsoft account with a Power BI Pro licence (or a workspace on Premium or Fabric capacity) and read and build permission on the model. Your administrator turns on the Dataset Execute Queries REST API in the tenant settings.
Connect and paste a query
Create a data source with the Power BI connection, sign in with that account and pick the workspace and semantic model. You don’t have to write the DAX yourself: in Power BI Desktop, copy a visual’s query from Performance Analyzer.
Design and schedule
Link the fields to your page, add the page to a playlist and choose which displays play it, and when.
Start with a scoreboard.
These templates are made for figures on a display. Open one in Lumicast and replace the sample figures with fields from your query.
For the office and the production floor.
In the office, a team’s figures sit next to the news and today’s birthdays. On the production floor, each hall shows its units, uptime and safety streak.
Included in Team
The Power BI connection comes with Team, as do the connections to Teams, SharePoint and Google Sheets. Your Power BI licence comes from Microsoft.
€20 per display per month
Billed yearly. Monthly billing: €25 per display. All prices exclude VAT.
Compare plans →Frequently asked questions
Can I show my existing Power BI report?
Not as a report. The connection fetches values from your semantic model, not an image of a report or dashboard. You place the figures in your own page, which usually reads far better from a distance than a scaled-down dashboard.
What do we need in Power BI?
An account with a Pro licence, or a workspace on Premium or Fabric capacity, with read and build permission on the model. The Dataset Execute Queries REST API tenant setting has to be on, and the account must be able to stay signed in without repeated manual sign-ins. These settings are up to your Power BI administrator.
How often are the figures updated?
Lumicast runs the query every 5 minutes. The result is as current as your model in Power BI, so with a model that refreshes every hour, you see new figures every hour.
Which data can Lumicast see?
Lumicast requests read-only access to the workspaces and models of the connected account and runs your query. The model itself is never changed. A separate account for the displays is best. With row-level security, you see the data as that account sees it.
What happens if the internet connection drops?
The display keeps showing the last figures it received. Once they are well past their refresh time, the display shows a notice that the content may not be up to date. When the connection returns, the new figures appear.
Can we try it with our own model?
Yes. The 14-day trial includes Team, so you can connect your own Power BI account. If you do not choose a plan afterwards, the displays stop playing. Your workspace and content remain available.
Put your own figures on a display.
Connect your Power BI model during the trial and see how your figures look from across the room. Questions about access in Power BI? We’re happy to help.
Try Team for 14 days. No payment details needed.