Microsoft Power BI is one of the most powerful and popular data visualization tools there is. Power BI is a suite of business intelligence (BI), reporting, and data visualization products and services for individuals and teams.
Made by Microsoft, it’s used in boardrooms and conference rooms everywhere to make presentations more visual and interactive, helping stakeholders make more informed decisions.
This valuable tool doesn’t need to be confined to conference rooms, though. Displaying PowerBI reports in an office setting can have real value. From providing information to a customer base or giving real-time sales or inventory numbers to a team, there are countless reasons to display PowerBI on a TV screen in your office or warehouse floor.
How to Display PowerBI on a TV
Despite the myriad of reasons you might want to push PowerBI data to a screen, there currently is no native way to push or cast your dashboards to a screen. We need to get creative.
There are three simple ways to get PowerBI up on a screen:
- Directly connect a computer to your screen and display via web browser
- Cast your web browser to your screen with PowerBI on it
- Turn your screen into a digital sign, and display PowerBI or any other information you’d like
Via Direct Connect and Web Browser
Laptop to HDMI cable to TV. The simplest possible approach.
This works great for meeting presentations and one-off walkthroughs. Someone pulls up Power BI on their laptop, mirrors the display to the conference room TV, and walks through the data live.
However for always-on displays, it falls apart fast. You're tying up someone's laptop. The laptop will sleep. You can only show one dashboard (no rotation). And if the person takes their laptop to a meeting, the TV goes dark.
If you're looking into permanent screen setups, consider turning your TV into a digital sign instead of relying on cables.
Finally, you’ll need some way to refresh the report. This is fairly simple and can be done using a tab refresh extension for your browser. If you’re running the desktop version of PowerBI, you’ll have to hit “Publish” from the top menu to get it on a web browser for auto-refresh.
Via Chrome Browser
If your TV is connected to a network, it’s possible to cast a laptop screen to it. On your Chrome browser, click the 3 Dots in the upper right corner → Save and share → Cast…
A list of devices will pop up. Choose your device, and you’re off to the races.
Again, this has issues: while it doesn’t require a laptop to be directly connected to a screen, it requires processing power from the computer, and a stable network connection. It also means the laptop’s Chrome browser can’t be used for anything other than casting your PowerBI dashboard. You’ll still need an auto-refresher extension, and you’ll still have to manually manage your reports and screens to some degree.
While this might be a better option than a direct connection in many cases, it still doesn’t work that well as a long-term or permanent solution. And, just like a direct connection, you wouldn’t be able to automatically cycle through reports.
Via Digital Signage
Another option is to convert your display into a digital sign. This is the best option for most office screens designated for display, as it allows for an easy display option for not just PowerBI but all kinds of other information.
To do this, you’ll need digital signage software.
OptiSigns is your best bet. It’s an extremely powerful application with a heavy emphasis on meeting office needs. It’s easy to use and set up, and can be tried with a no-risk 14-day trial. OptiSigns has native integration with PowerBI, so it’s the perfect platform to display it.
PowerBI displays extremely nicely with OptiSigns, with no browser information, popups, or headaches. Unlike other solutions that use screenshots of PowerBI webpages, OptiSigns builds native integration with PowerBI using Microsoft PowerBI SDK. This ensures no browser information pops up on the screen:
Also, OptiSigns has over 160 app integrations as of August 2024. Other than PowerBI, OptiSigns supports integration with other popular reporting systems, like Salesforfce, Grafana, Tableau, and many more.
Using Playlists, OptiSigns can rotate through reports, whether that’s multiple PowerBI reports or some mix of PowerBI and another reporting software, or anything else you feel would liven up the office.
Finally, all these assets can be scheduled to play only during business hours, or certain times of day. OptiSigns can fully automate your screen, making it turn off and on when needed. Since it auto-refreshes your reports as well, this makes OptiSigns a fully automated option. A no-brainer for saving time.
If you don’t have a smart TV or screen capable of downloading the OptiSigns app, look into an Android digital signage player that can plug in to your screen via HDMI. The OptiSigns Android Stick player costs only $79.99 - much cheaper than the laptop you’d have to dedicate to the same task!
Compared to simply casting or plugging in a laptop, setting up a screen as a digital sign is a more complicated process. It will take around half an hour to set up your PowerBI dashboard with OptiSigns for the first time. Subsequently, it will take only a minute or two.
If you’re only looking to display a PowerBI report for a few minutes to a few hours one time, it makes sense to go with the direct connect or casting option.
Otherwise…there really aren’t any drawbacks. You get more options with a better service for significantly cheaper than dedicating a laptop or tablet to the task.
Which Method Should You Use?
Other Methods You'll See Online
Two other approaches come up frequently. Neither is ideal for permanent displays, but they're worth knowing about:
PowerPoint Embed — Power BI has a native add-in for PowerPoint. You embed a live dashboard into a slide deck, then loop the presentation on a screen. The dashboard updates while the deck is open. The problem: if the laptop sleeps, PowerPoint closes, or the network drops, the screen goes blank and someone has to restart it manually. This method generallly works best in meetings. Build a deck with embedded Power BI visuals, present it in a conference room, and you get the polish of slides with the depth of live data. If you go this route, check out the guide on PowerPoint resolution for digital signage to make sure your visuals look sharp on large screens. You can also display PowerPoint on digital signs if you want to combine slides with other content.
Publish to Web — Power BI lets you generate a public URL for any report. You open that URL on any screen with a browser — clean, borderless, no login required. The catch: "no login required" means anyone with the link can see your data. Only use this for non-sensitive, non-confidential dashboards. Microsoft explicitly warns against using Publish to Web for internal data. If you do use it, add ?chromeless=1 to the end of the URL. This removes Power BI's navigation chrome and gives you a clean, borderless view that looks much better on a TV.
Setting Up PowerBI on a TV Screen with OptiSigns
For an in-depth guide, see how to set up your PowerBI dashboard with OptiSigns. Here, we’ll cover the basics.
Any version of OptiSigns will allow you to display your PowerBI dashboard on a TV screen. To get started, copy the URL from your PowerBI Dashboard. Be sure it’s the link from the browser address bar and not the Share link. You’ll also need your login credentials.
Now, go to the OptiSigns app portal. Click Files/Assets → Apps:
A big list of Apps will appear. Among them, you’ll find the PowerBI App. Click on it.
This screen will appear:
Configure your asset. Give it a name (e.g., "Sales Dashboard Q1") and paste the Power BI report URL. This is the URL you see when viewing the report in Power BI Service (app.powerbi.com).
Set the Update Interval. This controls how often OptiSigns refreshes the dashboard from Power BI. Every 30 minutes is a common starting point. Adjust based on how frequently your underlying data changes.
Enter your Power BI login credentials. OptiSigns stores these encrypted and uses them to authenticate on your behalf via OAuth (the standard protocol Microsoft uses for secure third-party access). This is what eliminates the login screen problem — the platform handles MFA and token refresh server-side, so the TV never touches your credentials directly.
Save and assign to your screen. Select which display (or displays) should show this dashboard.
(Optional) Add to a playlist. Want to rotate between your Power BI sales dashboard, a production metrics report, and a company announcement? Create a playlist, set the duration for each item, and OptiSigns handles the rotation automatically. You can even display dashboards on office screens from multiple data sources in the same playlist.
That's it. The screen will display your Power BI dashboard and keep it running without any browser management or session refreshing.
Once you’ve configured your PowerBI asset, it can be assigned to a screen. or added to a playlist with other assets. This can be scheduled to play only during business hours, or certain hours of the day, saving power to your TV.
Get Started
Displaying Power BI on a TV doesn't have to be a maintenance headache. The right setup runs itself: dashboards stay live, data refreshes, and nobody has to walk across the office to type in a password.
If you're managing more than a screen or two, a signage platform saves real time and frustration. OptiSigns' native Power BI integration handles the hard parts (auth, refresh, scheduling) so you can focus on the data, not the display infrastructure.
