Configure Reporting Intelligence

This article introduces you to Reporting Intelligence and guides you through configuration steps that are required to start working with Reporting Intelligence. You and other users from your organization will be able to work with Reporting Intelligence only if the required configuration steps are complete.

Overview

Reporting Intelligence is an intelligent cloud platform that consolidates insightsoftware financial reporting products into a single, integrated application. Rather than working across multiple standalone tools, you can access all reporting capabilities through one centralized interface with consistent navigation and shared data connections. With the built-in intelligence, you can perform advanced analysis of your financial data and effectively respond to changing business conditions and stakeholder requirements.

Reporting Intelligence brings you the following benefits:

  • Simplified access - you have access to all insightsoftware financial reporting tools from a single login and interface, which eliminates the need to switch between multiple applications or manage separate credentials.
  • Connected workflow - you can easily move through your entire reporting lifecycle - from data preparation to analysis to distribution - without exporting and importing data between different tools.
  • Cloud-based flexibility - you can work from any device with internet access and collaborate in real-time with team members across locations.
  • Intelligent automation - you can leverage built-in intelligence that suggests relevant actions, automates routine tasks, and maintains consistency across your reporting processes.

Before You Start

Your Reporting Intelligence is already configured? Skip to Get Started with Reporting Intelligence.

Before you start, make sure that:

  • You have log-in credentials for Reporting Intelligence.
  • You have admin access to your organization Microsoft SharePoint site where reports will be stored.
  • You use a supported browser: Latest two versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge.

Step 1: Log In to Reporting Intelligence

In this step, you access Reporting Intelligence to begin the configuration process.

  1. Open your browser and navigate to Reporting Intelligence here.
  2. Enter your credentials and click Sign In.

The homepage and navigation pane appear.

Figure 1:  Homepage

You can now proceed with adding users to Reporting Intelligence.

Step 2: Create Users in Administration

In this step, you set up users after logging in for the first time.

  1. Navigate to Reporting Intelligence > Administration > Users and Licenses.
  2. Click Add Users > Create.
  3. In the User Details section, enter user details like name and e-mail.
  4. (Optional) Under Roles & Permissions, enable the Send activation email option.

  5. Under Licenses, select user role.

    Figure 2:  User roles

  6. Click Create. The software displays a success message.

You have created a user.

Step 3: Configure Data Source Connection in Data Hub

Important: If you want to configure a connection other than Microsoft 365 Business Central, you need to create a replication task before performing this step. For more information, see Create a Replication Task.

In this step, you configure the data source connection for Reporting Intelligence. The data source connection enables retrieving, updating and storing information.

Due to the complexity of this configuration, insightsoftware recommends you read

  1. Navigate to Reporting Intelligence > Data Hub.
  2. Click the Add Connection button. The software displays available connectors.
  3. Select a connector. The software displays the Create Connection wizard divided into sections.
  4. In the Basics section, enter a Connection Name and Description, then click Next.
  5. In the Connect section, enter your connection details and click Next.
  6. (Optional) Click the Test Connection button to verify the connection and click Next. In the Advanced section, the settings are pre-populated and don't need to be modified if there are no specific requirements.
  7. Click Create Connection.

You have configured your data source. The software displays the Connections page where your connection is listed.

Step 4: Grant Site-Level Access Using PowerShell

In this step, you run a PowerShell script to grant Reporting Intelligence explicit write access to your SharePoint site. This step must be completed before configuring the SharePoint connection in Reports Center.

Important: The user running this script must be a SharePoint Administrator or Site Collection Administrator for the target site.

Before you start, ask your SharePoint administrator to provide the following:

  • Target SharePoint site URL in the format: https://{domain}.sharepoint.com/sites/{SiteName}
  • Tenant ID of your Microsoft 365 tenant

Prerequisites:

  • PowerShell 7 installed. If not installed, download it from the PowerShell GitHub releases page.
  • PnP.PowerShell module. The script installs this automatically if it is not already present.

Open PowerShell 7 and run the following commands one by one:

  1. Configure environment variables. Replace the placeholder values with your actual information:

    $TargetSiteUrl = "https://yourdomain.sharepoint.com/sites/YourSiteName"

    $TargetTenantId = "your-tenant-id"

    $ExternalAppId = "1c59367d-d227-4628-a712-94fd9c58242e"

    $DisplayName = "Reporting Intelligence"

    $Permissions = "Write"

  2. Install the PnP.PowerShell module if it is not already installed:

    if (-not (Get-Module -Name PnP.PowerShell -ListAvailable)) { Install-Module PnP.PowerShell -Scope CurrentUser -Force }

  3. Create a temporary Entra ID app for interactive authentication. Copy the generated Client ID from the output — you need it in the next step:

    Register-PnPEntraIDAppForInteractiveLogin -ApplicationName "TempPermissionApp" -Tenant $TargetTenantId

  4. Connect to SharePoint. Replace TEMP_APP_CLIENT_ID with the Client ID from the previous step:

    Connect-PnPOnline -Url $TargetSiteUrl -Interactive -ClientId "TEMP_APP_CLIENT_ID"

  5. Grant Reporting Intelligence write permission to the SharePoint site:

    Grant-PnPAzureADAppSitePermission -AppId $ExternalAppId -DisplayName $DisplayName -Permissions Write -Site $TargetSiteUrl

You have granted site-level access. You can verify the permission was applied by running:

Get-PnPAzureADAppSitePermission -AppIdentity $ExternalAppId

You can now proceed to configure the SharePoint connection in Reports Center.

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Step 5: Configure Microsoft SharePoint Settings in Reports Center

You need a place to store your uploaded Excel files and the files that are created when reports are run. Reporting Intelligence supports SharePoint storage.

You need to allow insightsoftware to read and write to your SharePoint. insightsoftware needs to be able to publish the reports that have been run to your SharePoint.

  1. Navigate to Reporting Intelligence > Reports Center.
  2. Click the Settings button. The software displays information about a required Admin consent.
  3. Click the Initiate Admin Consent button. The software redirects you to Microsoft SharePoint where you approve the access to your organization SharePoint.
  4. When you confirm the Admin Consent, the software displays Connection Details. Enter the following values:
    • Site ID — the unique identifier of your SharePoint site. To find it, open your SharePoint site URL in a browser and append /_api/site/id to it (for example, https://yourdomain.sharepoint.com/sites/YourSiteName/_api/site/id). The Site ID is the value displayed after Edm.Guid.
    • Site Name — the display name of your SharePoint site, visible in the SharePoint admin center under Sites > Active sites.
    • Drive ID — the unique identifier of the document library. To find it, open Microsoft Graph Explorer, sign in, and run the following query: GET https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/sites/{site-id}/drives. The Drive ID is the id value for your document library in the response.
    • Drive Name — the display name of the document library, visible in your SharePoint site under Site contents.
  5. Click Save Configuration.

You have configured SharePoint settings to enable insightsoftware to read and write to your storage. Any report that is run in Reporting Intelligence will be written to your storage.

Figure 3:  Successful SharePoint configuration

Modifying SharePoint environment outside of Reporting Intelligence, for example changing the connected directory, renaming or moving site components, or deleting files, will break your existing configuration and require you to reconfigure the integration.

Step 6: Distribute the Download Links for Excel Add-Ins

Once you complete the required configuration, you can distribute the link to the insightsoftware downloads page so that users in your organization can download Reporting Intelligence Excel Add-Ins.

What's Next

Users in your organization can now get started with Reporting Intelligence Excel Add-Ins and upload and analyze first reports in Reporting Intelligence. Share the following articles with your team members:

 

 

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