Hello there!

I’m writing this article to document and let you know about the most recent feature we are incorporating to our already famous Company Communicator variant.

As I said previously here in this blog, improved reporting is the number one request for customers using the platform and usually something that creates blockers for the deployment. No more!

What is Company Communicator Insights?

Company Communicator Insights – The analytics framework and insights dashboard that allows admins and authors, collect, analyze and report on company communicator activities.

Microsoft Power BI was used to collect data from the communication platform and generate interactive dashboards that provide a variety of insights and details.

CC Insights – Overview Dashboard

The CC Insights Overview Dashboard provides information about notifications and related messages generated. You have access to the total number of notifications created, sent, the ones marked as important or scheduled.

The dashboard also plots a graphical view and offer detail on the top 10 most popular notifications sent. The popularity is calculated based on the user reach and number of read operations.

CC Insights – Notifications Dashboard

The CC Insights Notifications Dashboard offer more data for specific notifications, including details on each message sent as well as a graphical view of the total, failed and viewed messages.

When authors send notifications using the composer, they also have the chance to double click on the sent messages and get the number of reads for each one of the messages.

If you are excited about the reporting capabilities, note that you can even get more customized reports. We are providing a Power BI PBIX that can be edited and customized according to your enterprise or personal needs.

How can I use CC Insights?

You need to update your Company Communicator deployment with the latest code and then configure the PBIX file to point to your Azure storage account.

Update

First of all, make sure you have the 4.1 version deployed, then follow the steps below to update the App Service and the three Azure Functions used by Company Communicator.

  1. Open your Azure Portal and authenticate using admin credentials.
  2. Open the resource group where you installed Company Communicator.
  3. Select the App Service being used by CC and click on Deployment Center, under Deployment.
  4. In Settings, click Disconnect under External Git.
  1. Click OK to disconnect your deployment.
  2. Under Source, select External Git.
  1. In Repository, type https://github.com/cristianoag/microsoft-teams-apps-company-communicator.git
  2. In Branch, type master
  3. Leave the Repository Type as Public, and click Save.
  4. Click Sync.
  5. The whole update process will take a few minutes. Make sure you see Success (Active) on the logs tab.
  6. Now repeat that for each one of the Azure Functions you have on the same resource group. Those are the resources listed as:
    • <ccname>-data-function
    • <ccname>-function
    • <ccname>-prep-function

Power BI Configuration

Now that you updated the CC deployment, you need to download and configure the PBIX file. You can download it directly from GitHub clicking here.

Save the file on your computer and open it using Power BI Desktop. If you don’t have Power BI Desktop yet, install the latest version from the Windows Store.

When you have the file opened using Power BI Desktop, click on Tranform Data and then select Data source settings.

Select the data source that is available and click on the Change Source… button.

Provide the storage account name. You can get that name on your Azure portal, just select the storage account being used by your Company Communicator deployment and copy the name. It is usually available on the top left corner of the screen.

Click ok and then click Edit Permissions… now provide the Storage Account Access Key. You can get the key selecting the Access Keys, under Security + Networking on your Azure Portal. You may need to click Show Keys to see your key. Paste the value and click Save. Then OK and Close.

Now that you refreshed the credentials, go ahead and click on the Power BI Refresh Button. You will be able to see and interact with your data. You can also Publish the report and interact with its web version.

Please note that without a Power BI premium license you will only be able to interact with personally with the report. You won’t be able to share it with others and collaborate.

Enjoy, Cristiano

Disclaimer – The information contained in this blog post doesn’t represent the official Microsoft guidance or best practices. It is just the view of the author on current alternatives, implementations and workarounds for common issues and/or business needs. Please refer to official Microsoft documentation and evaluate carefully any steps, code or procedures documented herein. The author doesn’t offer any warranty. Use this information at your own risk.