Recently, Dave Ruijter posted a blog about a library containing all the Azure Icons. He shared all icons in his GitHub repository which allows you to directly connect it to the tool Diagrams.net (previously known as draw.io) to draft your Azure architecture.
One missing piece in this library was Power BI. Because of that, I decided to setup an icon library for all Power BI objects.
QUICK LINK: To directly open Diagrams.net with the appropriate library loaded, you can use this link.
Also check out the update to this blogpost here.
Diagrams.net?
Previously, I used a simple PowerPoint slide when I drafted technical solution proposals. This took me a whole lot of time by copy-pasting all the images, make it look nice and connect the dots together. While tools like diagrams.net are built for this purpose, I always stuck with PowerPoint as there were no icons for all Power BI objects in this tool. Until now!
The online tool Diagrams.net allow you to quickly draft your solution architecture by dragging and dropping icons on a white canvas and easily connecting the dots together. Below a simple example of what you can build in minutes!
What’s available?
As a first setup of an icon library, I decided to go for all objects in Power BI where you can grant permission to. I have used all icons that are used in the new updated interface of the Power BI Service.
The following list is available;
- Workspace
- Dataflow
- Dataset
- Report
- Paginated Report
- Dashboard
- App
- Deployment Pipeline
- On-premises data gateway
On top of that, I added some useful icons to extend the above items
- Premium icon (workspaces)
- Linked entity icon (dataflows)
- Computed entity icon (dataflows)
- Row-level-security icon
- *.pbix file
- *.pbit file
- *.pbids file
- General Power BI logo (yellow & black)
Do you miss an icon or have suggestions for further enhancements? Please let me know in the comments below or contribute on GitHub!
Get started!
Diagrams.net is a free tool that you can either run in your browser or run as a client application. You can get the tool via their website.
If you prefer to first download the icon library, you can also get it from GitHub via the link below. The XML file is the one you need to import in the tool.
You can either use this link to directly start with a blank canvas and the library loaded, or import the library manually to existing diagrams following the steps below.
With a few simple steps you can import the library in your environment. I have repeated the steps shortly below, but also have a look at Dave his blog for a more extensive description.
1. Open Diagrams.net
2. Click File
3. Choose Open Library From
4. Choose URL
5. Copy-paste this URL
6. Click Open
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Pingback: [UPDATED] Power BI icon for Diagrams.net to draft full Power Platform Solutions – Data – Marc
Hi Marc, really useful thank you!
Just to say your “this URL” link is coming back 404…
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/marclelijveld/Power-BI-Icons/master/Diagrams.net%20Library/Diagrams.net_PowerBIIcons.xml
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I got it to work using this link
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/marclelijveld/Power-BI-Icons/master/Diagrams.net_PowerBIIcons.xml
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Thanks for letting me know. I’ll update the link in the article.
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And finally, to import using the draw.io desktop version. Choose File > New Library. Provide a name for your library and then “Import”, navigate to the Diagrams.net_PowerBIIcons.xml file you’ve downloaded from Marc’s github and click “Open” and you should see all of the lovely icons!
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Hi Mark, Thanks for these very useful resources. Do you think you could add the Paginated report icon?
Thanks again!
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Would love to! Do you know a resource where I can get the icon?
The recently released icons in the February 2021 release are nowhere online yet. So couldn’t add them yet
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