Power BI Reports

Microsoft Power BI Desktop is a tool that helps you present the data that BigFix generates in a meaningful and comprehensible way. You can add an existing Power BI Report to your BigFix Insights implementation.

Before you begin

The following tasks are the prerequisites for generating data for Power BI Reports:
  • Download the no-cost Power BI Desktop package from the Microsoft website and install Power BI Desktop with access to the BigFix Insights database.
    Note: The instructions below are based on the July 2021 Power BI desktop version.
  • Set up BigFix Insights.
  • Add a datasource to BigFix Insights.
  • Run a successful extract, transform, and load (ETL) process.
  • Download and install the following fixlets from the BigFix Console:
    • Bigfix Insights – Power BI – Patch Remediation
    • Bigfix Insights – Power BI – Device Inventory

About this task

Repeat the following steps for all the Power BI Reports that HCL provides. The reports currently include Patch Remediation and Device Inventory.

Initial Configuration

Procedure

  1. Open one of the *.pbix files in Power BI Desktop.
    1. The authentication dialog box for the SQL server is displayed.
    2. Click Database in the left pane.
      The following dialog box is displayed.

    3. Edit the following items that match your environment:
      Server Enter the IP address or the DNS name for your Microsoft SQL Server. HCL has provided all the Power BI Reports with the common DNS name of bigfix.insights.database for your convenience. You can either add this DNS record to your DNS servers or even add it to the local HOSTS file on the computer on which you are running the Power BI Desktop.
      Database Enter the name of the BigFix Insights database. This is the default database name used by WebUI when setting up BigFix Insights for the first time.
      Username The provided HCL Power BI Reports uses SQL authentication. You must enter the username when using SQL authentication.
      Password Enter the password when using SQL authentication.
      Note: If you have a Windows authentication enabled on SQL Server and the user that runs Power BI Desktop has access to the BigFix Insights database, then you can change the authentication method to Use Windows Authentication. When publishing your workbooks to the Tableau Server, the Tableau Server uses this account as a default to access your SQL Server. After you enter the correct data entries, the report continues to load. You are ready to publish your workbook.
  2. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for each additional *.pbix file to view or edit.
    Sample Reports
    Sample reports screenshots are shown below:
    Patch Remdiation sample report

    Device Inventory sample report