How to Display Power BI on a TV, Any Screen
There are basically three ways to show up Power BI on a TV: you can use an HDMI cable from your laptop, set up the webpage with the Power BI report in full screen inside a small computer plugged into the TV, or use a digital signage player that loads up the Power BI report and keeps it pinned there. That’s what we at AIScreen found from our research, which was done in 2020, where Microsoft reported 97% of Fortune 500 companies utilize Power BI. This is an outdated adoption number, but it shows the extent of the platform’s adoption by big companies.
The three options to place a report on a screen are listed in this guide with the comparison of the options when no one is physically present in front of a screen. The next step is the complete set up for a permanent screen. It spans from the embed link in Power BI to pairing, naming and scheduling to a display check. Then, the guide ends with how the always-on dashboard can change a team, and addresses the questions people may have regarding refresh rates, changing logon prompts and data security.
How Do You Display Power BI on a TV?
There are a few different approaches for displaying Power BI on a TV:
Connecting a laptop with Power BI via HDMI, a small computer running a browser with Power BI report in full screen mode, or a Digital Signage player that runs a published Power BI report on its own. They all placed the same photograph on the pane. The difference between them is what happens on day 2, when no one’s available to wake the machine.
There are many reasons why organizations may want a report on a screen, and it is not a technical matter but it is often about a disconnect between a data-driven and data-informed organization and very few organizations report such a disconnect has been closed (NewVantage Partners, 2023).
Crews, who do not have desktop computers, will want numbers in terms of output and defects on a production floor. A sales team desires pipeline on the wall and they don’t want it to go down as a weekly slide. A branch manager would like the service data to be visible to the individuals providing the service. It really depends on whether you are showing a report temporarily or permanently to determine which is the best way.
Power BI Report Over a Direct HDMI Connection
A laptop, an HDMI cable and the TV cover the temporary case completely. When you open the report in the Power BI service, switch the browser to full screen and plug the cable in the dashboard automatically fills the screen. This is perfect for a quarterly review or one-off meeting presentation, anything more is a waste of effort!
That’s not a viable solution on an always-on screen. Laptop falls asleep, session times out and loads into a log-in screen, laptop is transported to another person’s desk by Thursday, TV displays a screensaver. If the TV is using the same network, the laptop screen can be cast to the TV allowing for a clearer screen but not helping with messy desks.
At AIScreen, we would be suggesting you to begin with the simplest one that could solve the problem. If you only need to share Power BI once a week for a meeting, it’s OK to plug in a laptop via HDMI. Don’t require to buy a separate media player for all the needs. A managed signage solution would be suitable where the same report is required to be displayed for the whole duration of the working day or many different departments require access to various dashboards.
Power BI Report in a Chrome Kiosk Browser
The next step up is a small desktop computer or a stick plugged into the TV that runs Chrome in kiosk mode on the report URL. No items need to be carried anywhere, the browser will start on boot, and display flicks back after a power outage. Well it’s much better than the laptop and it doesn’t cost a lot of money.
What it doesn’t give you is control. No dashboard alerts you that a screen dropped out, no-one logs in from another desk to take over the report and a logged out session just sits on a dialog box with a login screen until someone strolls over with a keyboard. So 2 screens are OK like this, 10 screens installed in 3 locations, not.
Power BI Dashboard on a Digital Signage Player
Now its time for third step.
The third use case is considering the TV as a managed display rather than a monitor. If you’re considering a permanent screen, a player can sit behind the panel or the app on some smart TVs can sign you in to your account and play what that screen is assigned to play, a great and sensible choice.
This report becomes one of those pieces of content created via an app containing your published embed link, which will remain alive after a reboot and will never request anyone to log in again.
The first two methods do not provide a list of each individual screen, a content that can be reallocated at your desk, or groups that allow one single change to be distributed across all screens in a building, which is what comes with running it through digital signage software. AIScreen serves the Power BI report as a standard App and displays the live (published) view, not a view of a picture of the view.
Refresh Rate for a Power BI Dashboard on a TV
Last but not the least, you need to decide when to refresh the report, as there is nothing worse than a stale dashboard! The information shown on the TV is only as up to date as the data that it is based on and Microsoft provides 8 TVs of dataset refresh per day on shared capacity vs 48 on Premium capacity (Microsoft, 2025).
Determine the actual desired rhythm for the report prior to selecting the hardware. The daily sales board is fine on a scheduled refresh, but the live operations view require the higher end of Power BI’s capabilities and requires licensing.
Which Method Should Display Power BI on a TV?
You need to select the method based on how long the report will be left unattended.
The only options which may exist are a cable for the meeting room, a kiosk browser for a single permanent display with an owner in the immediate vicinity and a signage player if the display is a permanent display or when there are multiple displays.
The third row of this list is for those that are ready to see Power BI dashboards from digital signage.
| Method | Best for | What it takes | Where it breaks |
| Laptop over HDMI | Meetings, reviews, one-off walkthroughs | A cable and a laptop somebody is holding | Sleep, expired sessions, the laptop leaving the room |
| Browser in kiosk mode | One always-on screen with an owner nearby | A mini PC or stick, a signed-in session, launch on boot | No remote view or control, manual restarts, sign-out freezes |
| Signage player or smart TV app | Permanent screens, several rooms, several sites | A player or supported TV, an account, the embed link | One setup pass at the start |
As with most things cost will usually come quicker than features. Licensing on the Power BI end is still required for everyone watching an embedded repor, and with Microsoft’s price change in April of 2025, a Pro user seat will cost $14/month which should be considered before dreaming of a wall of dashboards (Microsoft, 2025). Typically the smaller number will be hardware.
If the screen is in a customer facing environment rather than being in an employee space, think of it as an extra part of the space, as is done in bank branches with digital signage.
PowerPoint Embed for a Power BI Report
There are two other methods that are mentioned numerous times in forum posts, and both are to be avoided. The first is the PowerPoint embed, which means that with the Power BI native add-in for PowerPoint, an active Power BI image will be embedded in a PowerPoint slide, which will then be looped on the TV.
It does work. You’ve also just installed a second app to run on the device, and a slideshow no one notices quietly failing to loop is a disappointment no one experiences for days.
Publish to Web and Its Security Cost
The second one is Publish to web, which takes care of generating a public URL that can be opened on any device without any authentication whatsoever. The simplicity is genuine and so is the exposure.
In the case of a report being shared in this manner, Microsoft quite simply states that a report can only be viewable by everyone on the internet, something which means it would not be usable for any report regarding revenue, staff or customers. The following points seeing a company’s numbers published to the open web is not for convenience.
Which Steps Set Up a Power BI TV Screen?
There are 4 steps to set up the report. First is to copy the embed link from Power BI, pair the TV, add the Power BI app with embed link, schedule the content, and publish the report.
All below takes place in someone’s browser and display requires no keyboard after one minute. AIScreen maintains a detailed walkthrough for installing this Power BI dashboard onto a screen, which is at the right hand side of this page if you want a step-by-step breakdown of all of the fields.
Power BI Report and Hardware You Need First
Make sure you have four things in place before you begin. A Power BI account (where the report is published into workspace), display (both signage player and smart TV are supported), working network connection and AIScreen account. Be sure to test if the Power BI app is reachable on your plan prior to starting the task; it can be installed in the App Store of the AIScreen App
Screen size and how far back the screen is should also be on the list. The number of visuals and the size of the tiles on a report typically will decrease when viewers are reading it across a room from what they would require if the report was to be read from a lap or desk.
Copying the Power BI Report Embed Link
Open the Power BI service then go to the workspace holding the report and open the report itself. Select File, Embed report, Website or portal and highlight the secure link returned by Power BI and select Copy. That is what prevents the TV going down to the public route mentioned above, park it somewhere safe before switching tabs.
Before installing it we have one thing that we want you to consider about how the Power BI report authenticates. However, as mentioned in Microsoft’s documentation, a safe embed link will still require sign-in and permissions of the user. May also need more authentication at the end of sessions. We’d say try the test with the player restarted, and test to see if the display can be called back without opening exposure of sensitive data or locking up at a login screen at AIScreen. One occurrence of the report is not a good unattended setup.
Digital Signage Player Install and Screen Pairing
Now install the AIScreen app on whatever display you have. It may be an AIScreen OS device, an Android or Fire OS stick, a Windows, macOS or Linux desktop machine, or a supported LG webOS or Samsung Tizen panel. Then open the app and it shows a four-character pairing code beside a QR code, and that code is the only thing you need from the TV itself.
Adding the Screen in AIScreen Manager
Now go to AIScreen Manager, open Screens then click Add Screen you need to type the four characters exactly same as they appear on the TV and click on Continue. A wrong code returns an error rather than a blank display. This is the same pairing flow used to turn a smart TV into a notice board, and it takes about a minute per screen.
Screen Names and Groups for Every TV Dashboard
Right click the paired screen and assign it a name that identifies its physical location, e.g., Finance Floor East, Branch 12 Teller Wall and place it into a group by right clicking and choosing Edit Tags and selecting or creating the site, department or floor group. Groups enable you to push a new report to all the displays in a building, without having to push each display individually.
Adding the Power BI Dashboard App in AIScreen
From the left menu select Open Apps and then Open App Store. Then a large list of apps will appear so simply type Power BI on the search bar and select it from the suggestions, click on its icon and select Go to App.
Pasting the Embed Code and Saving the Asset
Now its time to put the embed link in the Embed Code box and name the asset for example Revenue Dashboard Lobby the save and assign to the screen that you have paired. AIScreen now possesses the report as content which you can move around, just like an image or a video.
Playlist for the Power BI Dashboard
You can add a playlist with a single report and if two reports exist, that playlist should be added, too. Open Playlists, create a new one and then add the Power BI asset. The other items that need to rotate/paraphrase next to it are put in the same place, for example a second report, or a company notice with each set to have an order and a duration.
Schedule for the TV Dashboard
Scheduling is the difference between a dashboard on time that they read and one they don’t; a dashboard can be on screen for the shift time and replaced with a welcoming board at night. It is important to align with what your licence can provide as Power BI’s automatic page refresh will only be available under the Premium and Fabric capacities (Microsoft, 2025).
Publishing and Checking the TV Dashboard
The most important step is to publish the content to the paired screen then prove it landed rather than assuming it did. Click the screen in your list to open its detail view, where a preview window shows what the display is playing right now, and then walk out and read the smallest figure on the dashboard from where people will actually stand.
We’d recommend doing one final check from the actual viewing distance before calling the installation finished. Stand where employees normally work and try reading the smallest number on the dashboard. Check the colors, text size, and whether the most important information stands out. We’d also compare the figures on the TV against the original Power BI report to make sure the data is current. A dashboard can be technically connected and still be difficult for anyone in the room to use.
Fixing the Three Faults That Show Up First
There are three things that most often cause issues when viewing a Power BI screen. If this fails to display or becomes blank then it typically occurs when the network is unavailable or the screen is frozen you need to check the device connectivity, if still seeing old content use Refresh on the screen entry, if still see old content, use Clear Cache.
If you’re seeing a report yesterday that shows those figures, it’s a Power BI problem, not signage it’s a sign of the refresh schedule of the dataset in the workspace.
If you see a sign-in window on the TV then the address being pasted was the insecure embed address and copy and paste it again through File and Embed report to remove it. If a display continues to drift offline while no one is there, use a display reboots on its own page on the screen entry to reboot the display every couple of hours instead of waiting for someone to unplug.
Why Put a Power BI TV Display in the Room?
When you place a Power BI display in the room, you are rewarded. The numbers are no longer something people have to go look up. Starting up also is the least costly aspect of the project. People read a report on a wall dozens of times daily passing, but who would never open the workspace themselves, and a bad trend isn’t found out till the morning it begins. However, that should not come at the cost of the headache of having to maintain the TV to show the Power BI.
The argument for the third is the same all the way through. However no matter you’re managing one screen or a dozen, a signage platform saves actual time by ensuring live Power BI reports are seen where staff work in offices on production floors or in branches and notifies you when a signage display goes offline. In fact that has been happening for years and is one factor contributing to the global digital signage market reaching $26.76 billion in 2023 (Grand View Research, 2024). On the first screen, the work is equal and on the remaining screens almost zero.
Can Digital Signage Display Power BI and TV?
Once a screen has a dashboard, it’s unlikely to remain a single-purpose screen and since the same panel can show Power BI and ordinary TV content, adding a welcome message, a news feed or a video costs nothing. The other way around is an obvious question too: can digital signage be used like a TV for live channel offerings and typical viewing during off-duty hours? If you know an exact spot where signage ends and broadcast starts, you won’t have to purchase signage for a second panel at the same wall.
Ready to Display Power BI on a TV?
We think that setting up Power BI on a TV is worthy if the report is important to more than one person; in that case, it will take only an hour. These all fit into a single category and are called to solve the same problem: without a human presence at hand, they remain displaying information on the wall for a year. Choose the pathway based on the length of time the screen will need to remain set up untreated, and then look at what is licensed on the Power BI end since the licensing is typically incurred there (and not on the hardware).
The above configuration loops through the permanent route outlined below, the secure embed link out of Power BI goes to a paired screen with a name and a group and then to a Power BI App containing the link to that screen, to a playlist and to a schedule, and finally a preview screen displaying that it is playing.
Everything is done on one AIScreen account.You add the report to any paired screen, tell the dashboard when to come up and when it will go away so you can remotely refresh it if a report needs a helping hand and tell any screen when to display the dashboard and when it will show other content and reverse control over any of these supplies. Come see us to collectively pair one screen and get on the wall for 14 days with the live report.
What Do People Ask About a Power BI TV Display?
How Often Does a Power BI Dashboard Update on a TV?
A Power BI dashboard updates on a TV as often as its dataset refreshes, not as often as the screen redraws. Shared capacity allows 8 scheduled refreshes a day and Premium capacity allows 48, while near-live page refresh requires Premium or Fabric capacity.
Can a Single Screen Cycle Through Several Power BI Reports?
Yes. Each report is added as its own app asset, and a playlist with a duration per item moves the screen from one to the next in a fixed order.
Is Power BI Data Secure on a Public Screen?
Power BI data stays secure on a screen when the display shows the secure embed link generated through File and Embed report. The Publish to web option is the unsafe one, since Microsoft makes that address readable by anyone who has it.
Will the TV Show a Login Screen to Viewers?
No. A report added through a signage app holding the secure embed link plays without a sign-in, because the player holds the session rather than asking the display to authenticate.
Can Different TVs Show Different Power BI Reports?
Yes. Content is assigned per screen, so a finance report can run in one office while an operations report runs in the warehouse, both managed from a single account.
Do You Need a Power BI Licence to Show a Report on a Screen?
Licensing follows Power BI’s rules rather than the screen’s. Viewers of an embedded report need the appropriate Microsoft licence, starting at a Pro seat and rising to Premium capacity where near-live refresh is required.
