Embedding Word Documents into new App Experience within #PowerBI
I was recently fortunate enough to go to the Microsoft Business Applications Summit where I had a great experience.
One of the things that they did talk to, was creating links within the New App Experience which could link to other web pages or documents.
This is really an awesome feature, and it enables users to stay within the App and get a wealth of information. I really like this new app experience.
I wanted to see if I could get this working and I will demonstrate how I got it working within my App as shown below.
As always, I will demonstrate this with a working example.
In my example I am going to use a sample Word Document that I created.
Creating the Embed Code for the Word Document
The first thing that I did was to save my Word Document to a SharePoint or OneDrive Document library used within my organization.
NOTE: I made sure NOT to use my personal SharePoint or OneDrive document library
As shown below this is what it looks like when viewing the location of the word document online
One way of knowing if you are in your personal library is that when I am in my personal library it does not show the Shared library name at the top.
As you can see below this what my personal library looks like
In order to create the embed code I completed the following steps.
NOTE: As far as I could see this HAS to be done online, you do not get the Embed Option when working with Word on the desktop application.
NOTE II: If the user is not part of my organization, I will then need to add permissions for an external user to access the word document.
- I uploaded my word document to my SharePoint Library called FourMoo-O365
-
I then clicked on the word document to open it online.
-
I then clicked on File, Share and selected Embed
-
This then brought up the Embed Window as shown below.
- What I then did was I copied out the entire Embed Code and Pasted it into Notepad
- Now the challenging part is that all that I needed was the actual embedding URL from the code above.
-
What I did was to copy only the embed code from the following section as shown below, which was everything between the first ” and second “
- The result of my copy was the following:
- https://fourmoo.sharepoint.com/sites/fourmoo-o365/_layouts/15/Doc.aspx?sourcedoc={12345678-4444-1234-4444-1234567890ab}&action=embedview&wdStartOn=1
- Now I had my Embed code that I could test by pasting the above URL into a browser Window
Creating a New Link in the New App Experience
The final step is to now create a new link in the New App Experience that will show the users who are consuming the App the word document.
- I went to the Navigation section.
-
I first made sure that the New navigation builder was enabled
-
Then under Navigation I clicked on the Plus Sign and selected Link
-
I then put in the following information for the Link
-
Name – This is the Name of the Link
- Glossary of Terms
-
Link – This is the actual embed code which I created in the steps above.
-
Open in – The area you want it to open in
- I put in content area so that it will open within the App
-
Group – If you have groups you can group items together
- No section
-
- Once completed with my App it looked like the following under Navigation
- I then clicked on Update App
I waited a minute or so and then went into my App and I then clicked on the Glossary of Terms.
And now I could see my word document embedded.
Conclusion
I have shown how to embed a word document into the new app experience in Power BI.
Thanks for reading once again, if there are any comments or suggestions please leave them below.
Can the embedded document be edited from within Power BI?
I have not had a look, I am going to assume that when the content is embedded it is for viewing purposes only
This is fantastic! A great way to give users a handy reference guide.
Thanks Chris for the comment!!
[…] Embedding Word Documents into new App Experience within #PowerBI […]
Is there a way of embedding this without having to provide everyone access to the sharepoint site that the document is saved within?
Hi James,
You could do this if you upload the word document to OneDrive, after which you could then embed it?
Hi,
Did you consider making a PowerBI template app out of it for the community to enjoy?
Template apps GA: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-power-bi-template-apps-general-availability/
Hi Teddy,
That is a great idea, let me see if I can get it done.
When I insert the word document into my power bi page. It comes out super small and zoomed in. And I cannot figure out how to change the size. Has anybody ran into this problem?
Hi there
What happens when you view the Word Document in SharePoint Online?
Possibly you set the default size to be small?
This is super helpful.Thanks.
Awesome thanks for the kind words
do you have to have an app created to embed documents or can you do this on a regular power bi report?
Hi there
Yes you do in order to embed the URL in the app.
can this be done in a regular power bi report? I don’t have an app built, just a regular report.
I do not think so at the moment. It would need a custom visual in the Power BI report to render the document.
Anyone has done embedding a PDF file located in SharePoint folder in PowerBI app page? please help
Hi John,
I am not sure if this is possible. What happens when you try and embed it?