AskBI
Everything you need to connect AskBI to your own Microsoft Fabric data — and exactly how AskBI accesses it.
← Back to AskBIAskBI is a read-only tool. It runs the questions you ask as DAX queries and reads each report's last-refresh time — nothing else. It never edits, refreshes, deletes, or otherwise changes any data, model, or workspace in your Fabric / Power BI environment. The “read and write” permission you'll see on the sign-in consent screen is a Microsoft technicality, explained at the bottom of this page.
Setting you up takes three things: your directory (tenant) ID, the ID of each workspace you want AskBI to read, and a one-time approval from an administrator in your organization. Gather the two IDs below, then follow the setup steps. Each is a copy-and-paste value — you don't need to type anything by hand.
This is the unique ID of your company's Microsoft directory. To find it:
72f988bf-86f1-41af-91ab-2d7cd011db47 (a 36-character GUID).portal.azure.com → search Microsoft Entra ID → Overview → Tenant ID.You'll do this once for every workspace you want AskBI to read. The ID is in the page address:
The address looks like this — the highlighted part is your workspace ID:
https://app.fabric.microsoft.com/groups/3a1f9c20-7b44-4e8e-b1d2-9f0c5e6a7b88/list/groups/ and the next /.app.powerbi.com/groups/<workspace-id>/list.
Someone in your organization with administrator rights (a Global
Administrator or Privileged Role Administrator in
Microsoft Entra) needs to approve AskBI's read access once. Send them this
link, with your tenant ID from step A pasted in place of
{your-tenant-id}:
https://login.microsoftonline.com/{your-tenant-id}/adminconsent?client_id=a5941fb5-8b7c-42ba-8821-a07c72c04aa0When the administrator opens it, they sign in, review the read permissions AskBI requests, and click Accept. That's all — there's nothing to install. Until this approval is given, your users will be stopped at the Microsoft sign-in screen.
Email your BPS onboarding contact with the values you gathered:
Contact: mike@bps-corp.com.
We bind your account to your tenant and map the workspaces you sent. This takes effect immediately — no downtime, and nothing for you to install or configure.
Once we confirm you're connected, sign in to AskBI. The sidebar lists the reports from the workspaces you provided, and you can start asking questions in plain English. If something looks missing, see If you don't see your data.
Your data is isolated from every other AskBI customer by three independent safeguards:
When your administrator approves AskBI, the Microsoft consent screen lists a
permission named Dataset.ReadWrite.All. It's reasonable to ask why a
read-only tool requests something that says “write.” Here is the
complete answer.
AskBI performs zero changes to your Fabric / Power BI environment. It does not refresh datasets, edit models, change permissions, or modify any data. The only two things it ever does with your data are both reads.
Against your data, AskBI makes exactly two kinds of request, and both only read:
| What AskBI does | Why | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Runs a query | Answers your question by running a read-only DAX query, as you, with your security applied. | Read |
| Checks last refresh | Reads the report's last-refresh time so it can show you how current the data is. | Read |
So why the “write” wording? It comes from how Microsoft built the
query feature. Even though running a query only reads data, Microsoft placed that
capability behind the Dataset.ReadWrite.All permission — there
is no “read-only” version of it. To run your questions at all, AskBI
has to request that permission. It does not use any of the “write”
ability the permission technically allows.
If you sign in and your reports aren't listed, it's almost always one of these:
Still stuck? Email mike@bps-corp.com and we'll sort it out.