BI Helper FAQs
How BI Helper works | Data security and privacy | Advanced features
How BI Helper works
Where is BI Helper hosted?
BI Helper is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the US.
How does BI Helper create PDFs from my Power BI or Tableau reports?
Power BI: BI Helper opens your Power BI report in embedded mode and applies the defined filters and slicers using JavaScript APIs. It then takes snapshots of the selected report pages as .png images and stitches them together to create a PDF.
Tableau: BI Helper uses Tableau APIs and applies the defined filters and slicers using JavaScript APIs. It then downloads the selected report pages as .png images and stitches them together to create a PDF.
Can BI Helper access the data in my Power BI and Tableau reports?
Power BI: When BI Helper opens your Power BI report in embedded mode, your report stays in your tenant. BI Helper does not have permission to copy your reports and datasets to our tenant, nor can it view the datasets in your tenant. BI Helper can only view your Power BI report pages and create PDFs from them, as explained above.
Tableau: You can restrict the Tableau APIs to which BI Helper has access.
For how long does BI Helper store PDFs?
In our Standard license, BI Helper creates and emails the PDFs in a job run, then deletes them immediately from our servers.
In our Premium license, BI Helper stores PDFs for 5 days. This enables users to download and review the PDFs and then come back to BI Helper and email them, after which they are deleted. If you would like to reduce the storage period for your PDFs, email support@bihelper.tech with details.
Do I need to buy storage, servers or any other software to run BI Helper?
No, BI Helper runs entirely in the AWS cloud. Just create your account at https://portal.bihelper.tech and start running your Power BI or Tableau reports as BI Helper jobs.
Is there any page or size limit on the PDFs that are created on BI Helper?
No, there is no such limit. BI Helper is designed to create single or multi-page PDFs from Power BI and Tableau reports with no restriction on page count or file size. However, BI Helper cannot email PDFs over 8 MB in size due to limitations set by the AWS SES email system which BI Helper uses.
You can download large PDFs (and the smaller ones!) from our SFTP server and distribute them to your users, but not via the BI Helper email.
How many Power BI or Tableau reports can I run on BI Helper?
You can set up and run as many Power BI or Tableau reports and BI Helper jobs as you want. You can set up your reports as one or more BI Helper jobs based on filter / slicer selection, runtime schedules and other business requirements.
I want to distribute 5,000 PDFs daily. Can BI Helper do it? How long will it take?
Yes, BI Helper can easily handle large PDF volumes. Based on your report size (# pages), BI Helper will dynamically provision servers on AWS and generate your PDFs in multiple parallel threads. By default, BI Helper assigns 3 threads per job, but we can customize them to meet your SLAs.
Data security and privacy
Do we need to grant BI Helper access to all the workspaces and reports in our Power BI or Tableau tenants?
No, you do not. BI Helper requests permissions at a user level and not at the organization level. BI Helper can only view the Power BI or Tableau reports accessible to the user who is logged in to BI Helper.
Recommended: Create a Power BI or Tableau service account for BI Helper with access limited to the reports which you want to run on BI Helper. Use this service account to run all your BI Helper jobs.
Are my Power BI and Tableau data and credentials secure in BI Helper?
Yes, all your credentials are secure with BI Helper. We have implemented security safeguards in BI Helper including data encryption, virtual network, Multi-Factor Authentication, detailed alerting and logging. For more details, see BI Helper Information Security Guide.
Can you (BI Helper admin) see my Power BI or Tableau credentials?
No, your Power BI OAuth2 and Tableau API tokens are encrypted and stored in our application database. They are not readable by us (or any other human being!).
We have strict security compliance requirements in our organization. How does BI Helper integrate with the security policies of an organization?
BI Helper operates within the security framework of your organization. You can control BI Helper’s access to your IT environment just like you control the access of any employee or application.
I need to enter a passcode to login to my Power BI account (Multi-Factor Authentication). Does BI Helper provide MFA integration?
Yes, BI Helper integrates with Multi-Factor Authentication. No manual intervention is required to run your jobs to create and email your PDFs.
What security best practices should I follow on BI Helper?
We recommend the following security and access setup for your reports:
1. Create a new Power BI or Tableau account for BI Helper. Limit its access to the reports which you want to run on BI Helper.
2. Do not allow the new Power BI/Tableau user account to access any other IT resources of your organization.
3. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for your account and let BI Helper login using MFA.
Advanced features
Can BI Helper automatically pull filter values and contacts from my Power BI or Tableau report?
Yes, BI Helper has an automated input mode to fetch filter / slicer contacts and recipient email IDs from your Power BI data model or Tableau report. This is documented in Slicer and Filter Setup | BI Helper.
What if some PDFs fail and some succeed? How do I know what went through and what didn't?
BI Helper provides error alerts and reporting at the level of each PDF, i.e., for each filter / slicer + email combination. During and after job execution, you can see how many PDFs were successful, how many failed and which ones failed. You can also see the execution history of the last 15 job runs.
Does BI Helper support paginated reports?
No, BI Helper doesn’t support pagination. BI Helper takes a snapshot of your report tabs from Power BI Service, so it does not support vertical and horizontal scrolling of visuals.
However, our Premium license allows you to export table and matrix visuals as Excel files and attach them in your emails along with the PDFs. These Excel exports are filtered by the selected slicer / filter values and support full scrolling.
Can I use BI Helper to export Excel files of my visuals?
BI Helper allows you to export table and matrix visuals as Excel files and send them as email attachments along with the PDFs.