Using Copilot with Business Central Insights

What is Copilot?

Copilot in Power BI lets you interact with your data using plain English.

Instead of manually analysing reports, you can:

• Ask questions

• Generate summaries

• Identify trends and risks

• Create new reports instantly

For BCI users, this means:

faster insights, less manual analysis, and better decision-making.

Why this matters

Copilot sits on top of your BCI semantic model, so it already understands:

• financial structures

• measures (Revenue, COGS, EBITDA)

• dimensions (Customer, Department, Category)

📌 Important update
Microsoft is replacing the legacy Q&A feature with Copilot:
👉 https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-au/blog/deprecating-power-bi-qa/

How to enable Copilot

1. Open Power BI Service and go to your Workspace

2. In Settings, assign the workspace to a Fabric or Premium capacity (e.g. F2 or P1 and above)

3. Go to the Admin portal → Tenant settings

4. Enable:

   • Copilot / Copilot and Azure OpenAI Service

Start using Copilot

• Open a report in Power BI Service

• Click the Copilot icon

• Begin querying or generating insights

👉 Setup guide:
https://learn.microsoft.com/power-bi/create-reports/copilot-introduction

Understand your reports instantly

Start with pre-set prompts

👉 Try:

• “What is this report page about?”

• “Give me an executive summary of this report”

• or open the drop downs for further pre-set prompts

👉 You’ll get:

• bullet point summaries

• key metrics highlighted

• references to visuals

How Copilot uses your data

Copilot can query the entire semantic model, but the scope depends on the prompt you use.

• Some prompts are page-specific, for example:

  • “What is this report page about?”
    👉 Only summarises the current report page

• Other prompts are model-wide, for example:

  • “Give me an executive summary of this report”
    👉 May include insights from multiple reports across the model

👉 See Understanding references below to validate where insights are coming from.

Understanding references in Copilot responses

When Copilot generates a summary, you’ll see small reference numbers next to key statements.

These allow you to trace exactly where the insight came from.

How to use them

• Hover over a reference number

  • See the report and visual the data came from

  • View the specific metric or measure

• Click a reference number

  • Jump directly to the source report and visual

Why this matters

• Confirms data accuracy and transparency

• Helps you understand which reports are driving insights

• Prevents confusion when summaries include data beyond the current page

Drill into visuals

Every visual or KPI has a Copilot summary icon.

Use it to:

• explain a KPI or visualization

• understand drivers

• get deeper context

Ask your own questions

Examples:

• “Why is COGS over budget?”

• “What is driving EBITDA this month?”

• “Are there any red flags in working capital?”

• “Where can we cut costs with minimal impact on margin?”

👉 Copilot will:

• identify drivers

• highlight risks

• suggest areas to investigate

Tailor insights to your audience

Try:

• “Summarise this for the CFO”

• “Explain this for a Sales team”

Copilot adjusts:

• tone

• detail

• focus

📌 It may calculate additional metrics dynamically to suit the audience

Create new reports with Copilot in Power BI Service

Step 1: Create a report

• Go to your Workspace

• Find the BCI semantic model

• Click … (More options)

• Select Create report

Step 2: Open Copilot

• Open Copilot on the report canvas

• Start prompting

Example

“Create a monthly trend of EBITDA Margin from Jan 2025 to present”

It will give details of how the visual has been created as well as suggestions on what you might want to add to the visual.

Build multiple visuals at once on one page

Try:

“Create a line chart for monthly P&L trend showing revenue, costs, and EBITDA over the last 12 months and create a table listing the customers by Revenue from highest to lowest”

Create new reports with Copilot in Power BI Desktop

Step 1: Connect to your BCI semantic model

1. Open Power BI Desktop

2. Click Get Data

3. Select:

   • Power BI semantic models

4. Choose your BCI dataset

5. Click Connect

👉 This loads your governed model with all measures and relationships.

Step 2: Open Copilot in Desktop

1. In the top ribbon, go to:

   • Home

2. Click:

   • Copilot

👉 This opens the Copilot pane on the right-hand side.

Step 3: Start create visuals with prompts

You can now describe what you want in plain English.

What’s the difference between Power BI Desktop vs Service

In Desktop:

• More control over layout and formatting

• Better for refining reports

In Service:

• Faster for quick report creation

• More suited to business users

What to expect

• visuals may be basic initially

• you may need to refine them

• best used as a starting point

Build out your report page

Repeat with additional prompts to create:

• Supporting visuals

• Comparisons

• Breakdowns

Best practices

• Be specific with prompts

• Include timeframes and measures

• Validate using references

• Refine prompts step-by-step

Summary

Copilot helps you:

• understand reports faster

• generate insights in seconds

• create new visuals quickly

It turns your BCI reports into an interactive experience, not just a dashboard.

Final takeaway

With Copilot, you’re not just looking at data, you’re having a conversation with it.