Set Up PowerBI Robots in Under 10 Minutes: A Getting Started Guide (2026)
Your First Playlist, Live in 10 Minutes
The most common reason people do not use PowerBI Robots right after signing up is not the product. It is not knowing where to start.
This guide removes that obstacle. By the end of this walkthrough, you will have a live playlist: a scheduled delivery of a Power BI report, going to a recipient, on a schedule you set, with an AI summary included in the email. It takes under ten minutes.
Before You Start
Make sure you have the following ready:
- A PowerBI Robots account — trial or paid
- A Power BI workspace with at least one published report
- The email address of the person who should receive the report
- Admin or Member permissions on that Power BI workspace
Step 1: Connect Robots to Your Power BI Service
Open PowerBI Robots Agent and navigate to Power BI, then Connections. Authenticate into Power BI Service with your Microsoft account or service principal. Robots will request permission to read your workspaces and reports.
Once connected, your playlists will run under these credentials.
Step 2: Create a New Playlist
Click Create in the playlist list page. Give it a name that identifies the report and the recipient clearly. Something like ‘Weekly Sales Report — Regional Managers’ works well. This name is for your reference only and is not visible to recipients.
Select the workspace, then select the specific report you want to deliver. If the report has multiple pages, you can choose which pages to include or leave out.
Step 3: Set the Schedule
Under Scheduling, choose how often the playlist should run. The options are summarised below:
| Frequency | Configuration Options |
| Daily | Choose the specific time of day |
| Weekly | Choose the day and time |
| Monthly | Choose the date and time |
| Custom Interval | For less common or specialised cadences |
For a first playlist, a weekly send on Monday morning is a practical starting point. You can change the schedule at any time without recreating the playlist from scratch.
Step 4: Add a Recipient
Add the email address of the first recipient. If the report uses Row-Level Security and you want each person to see only their own data, fill the fields related to RLS-based delivery.
Robots applies the recipient’s identity to the report at the moment of delivery.
For your first test, keep it simple: one recipient, RLS off. You can configure dynamic delivery to multiple recipients once you are comfortable with the basics.
Step 5: Enable the AI Summary
Under delivery settings, use AI Summary tokens on the email body. When the token is present in the email body, the delivery email includes an automatically generated text summary of the report’s key figures.
The summary is generated at the time of each delivery, based on the data in the report at that moment. It surfaces the most relevant numbers so the recipient gets the key information without having to open or scroll through the report.
If you want to understand exactly what the AI summary includes and how it works, the article ‘AI Summaries in Power BI Report Emails: What They Are and How to Use Them’ covers it in full.
How to Check That It Ran
In the Robots history, each playlist shows its last run time, delivery status, and any errors. If a delivery fails because the report was unavailable or a recipient’s address bounced, the history will show the specific reason.
You can disable or edit any playlist at any time without losing its delivery history.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the recipient need a Power BI license?
No. The report is delivered as an image or PDF in the email. Recipients do not need a Power BI account or a Microsoft license of any kind.
Can I send reports to people outside my organisation?
Yes. Robots delivers to any email address. There is no restriction to internal recipients or users within your Microsoft tenant.
What happens if the report is unavailable when the playlist runs?
The delivery will fail, and the error will be recorded in the playlist history. The playlist will attempt delivery again at the next scheduled time.
How do I stop a playlist?
Click the playlist on the list Disable or Delete. Disabled playlists keep their configuration and can be reactivated without any changes.
To start your free trial of PowerBI Robots and set up your first automation, visit here.
Share this post:
