How to Add Video in Power BI Desktop

Adding a video directly into your Power BI report is a fantastic way to give context, provide instructions, or simply make your dashboard more engaging. This guide will walk you through several straightforward methods for embedding videos, turning your static reports into dynamic, multimedia experiences.

Why Add Videos to Your Power BI Reports?

While Power BI is an analytics and visualization powerhouse, your data doesn't always tell the whole story on its own. Embedding a video can provide crucial context that numbers alone can't. Think beyond just placing a YouTube link on the page, this is about integrating valuable content directly where your viewers need it most.

Here are a few practical scenarios where video shines:

• Training and Tutorials: Place a "how-to" video next to a complex chart to explain how to interpret the data or use the report's slicers and filters.
• Executive Summaries: Imagine a C-level executive providing a monthly business overview right on the main dashboard page. It personalizes the data and ensures key messages are heard.
• Marketing Analytics: Display your latest video ad next to its performance metrics (impressions, click-through rate, conversions) to give a complete picture of your campaign.
• Product Demonstrations: On a sales performance report, include a short video demonstrating a new product feature or sales technique being tracked.
• Company Announcements: Embed an all-hands meeting recording or a major company announcement video within an internal HR or communications dashboard.

Adding a video transforms your report from a passive display of information into an interactive and educational tool.

Preparing Your Video for Power BI

Before jumping into Power BI Desktop, you need to understand one key thing: Power BI doesn't store the video file itself. Instead, it streams the video from a publicly accessible URL. This means you can't use a video file sitting on your local computer or on a private network share.

Your video must be hosted on a platform like YouTube or Vimeo.

Getting the Right YouTube URL

Simply copying the URL from your browser's address bar or using the standard "Share" link won't work for embedding. You need the specific embed URL. Here’s how to find it:

1. Navigate to the YouTube video you want to use.
2. Click the Share button located beneath the video player.
3. In the pop-up window, click the Embed option.
4. A new window will appear with HTML code, typically starting with <iframe...>.
5. You don't need the whole code snippet. Look for the URL inside the src="..." attribute. It will look like this: https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID.
6. Copy only this URL. This is the link you'll need for most methods.

We'll primarily focus on YouTube for these examples, but similar principles apply to Vimeo and other services that provide embeddable video links.

Method 1: The AppSource Custom Visual (Recommended)

The most reliable and flexible way to embed a video is by using a custom visual from Microsoft AppSource. Several are available, but the "YouTube Player" visual is purpose-built and easy to configure.

Step 1: Get the Custom Visual

First, you need to add the visual to your Power BI Desktop visualization pane.

• In Power BI Desktop, go to the Visualizations pane on the right.
• Click the three dots (...) at the bottom and select Get more visuals.
• This will open the AppSource marketplace. In the search bar, type "YouTube Player" and press Enter.
• Find the visual by Daniel Marsh-Patrick and click Add.
• Once added, you'll see a new YouTube icon in your Visualizations pane.

Step 2: Create a Data Table for Your Video Link

The YouTube Player visual needs a data field containing your video's ID or URL. Instead of mixing this into your main datasets, it's cleaner to create a separate table just for this link. You can easily do this with a bit of DAX.

• From the Home tab ribbon, click Enter data.
• A blank table creation window will open. Click on Load without entering any data. This creates a blank table, which you can rename to something like "Video Links". This method is simple, but let's use DAX for more control.

A better way is using a calculated table with DAX:

• Go to the Data view on the left side of Power BI.
• In the Home tab, click New table.
• In the formula bar, enter the following DAX formula, replacing your_video_id with the unique ID from your YouTube video's embed link:

Video Link = 
DATATABLE(
    "VideoURL", STRING,
    {
        {"your_video_id_here"}
    }
)

This creates a simple, one-column, one-row table named "Video Link" containing your YouTube Video ID. Using a dedicated table like this makes it much easier to manage your links if you decide to change the video later.

Step 3: Add and Configure the YouTube Player Visual

Now, let's put it all together on the report canvas.

• Go back to the Report view.
• Click the YouTube Player icon in your Visualizations pane to add it to your report canvas.
• With the new visual selected, find your newly created "Video Link" table in the Data pane.
• Drag the VideoURL column into the Video Identifier field for the visual.

Your video should now appear in the visual! You can resize it and move it just like any other Power BI element.

Step 4: Format the Video Player

The YouTube Player visual comes with several handy formatting options. Select the visual and go to the Format your visual tab (the paintbrush icon) in the Visualizations pane. Here you can control:

• Player Controls: Toggle settings like Autoplay, Loop, and Show Player Controls. Tip: Avoid using Autoplay unless there's a very specific reason, it can be disruptive to users.
• Time Settings: You can set a specific start and end time for the video clip, which is useful for showing only the most relevant segment.

This method offers the most "native" feeling video playback experience directly within your Power BI report.

Method 2: Use an Image with a Clickable Action

This method doesn't technically embed the video but rather links out to it using a thumbnail image. It's a quick and simple alternative if you don't want to use custom visuals and are okay with users leaving the report to watch the video in a browser.

Step 1: Get Your Video Thumbnail URL

YouTube provides an easy way to grab a high-quality thumbnail image for any video. Just use the following URL structure, replacing VIDEO_ID with the ID of your video:

https://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/0.jpg

Step 2: Add and Configure the Image

• In Power BI Desktop, go to the Insert tab on the ribbon and click Image. Or, choose the Image visual from the Visualizations pane.
• With the image visual selected, go to the Format your visual pane.
• Expand the Image section and change the Image source type from Normal to Image URL.
• Paste the thumbnail URL you created into the Image URL field. The thumbnail should appear on your report.

Step 3: Add a Clickable Action

• In the same formatting pane, expand the Action section.
• Toggle the Action to On.
• Set the Type to Web URL.
• In the Web URL field, paste the standard YouTube share link for your video (e.g., https://youtu.be/your_video_id).
• You can add a tooltip, so when users hover over the image, text like "Click to watch video" appears.

Now, when a user clicks on the thumbnail image in your report, it will open the YouTube video in a new browser tab. It's a clean user experience that keeps your report light, though it does navigate the user away from the dashboard.

Best Practices for Using Videos in Power BI

Once you've mastered the "how," here are a few tips to ensure your videos enhance, rather than hinder, your reports:

• Relevance is King: Only add a video if it provides genuine value and context. A distracting, irrelevant video will do more harm than good and just slow down your report.
• Consider Load Times: Custom visuals and external content can slightly impact report load performance. Use videos thoughtfully and avoid having multiple videos on a single report page, especially with autoplay enabled.
• Manage Your URLs: For reports with multiple video links, don't hardcode them into DAX measures. Create a simple table (in Power Query, Excel, or with Enter data) that lists all your URLs. This makes them much easier to update in the future without hunting through formulas.
• Provide context: Use a text box or a title to explain what the video is about and why the user should watch it. Don't just leave a floating video on the page without explanation.

Final Thoughts

Integrating videos into your Power BI reports adds a powerful layer of context, narration, and training that flat charts and numbers can't always provide. By using methods like the YouTube Player custom visual or a simple clickable image, you can create more engaging, comprehensive, and user-friendly dashboards that tell a more complete story.

We know that creating insightful reports involves much more than just visualizations. It often starts with the time-consuming work of gathering, cleaning, and connecting data from different sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce. To help with this, we built Graphed to automate the most tedious parts of reporting. By connecting your sources and asking questions in plain English, you can get AI-powered dashboards in seconds, giving you more time to focus on strategic analysis and high-impact touches like adding explanatory videos to your new reports.