Salesforce Data, Fully Unlocked: What Power BI Missed and We Fixed

Resource / Read-Only Dashboards: The Bitter End for Clients Relying on Power BI

Modern CRM systems like Salesforce store a goldmine of data. But turning that data into insights — and actionable tools — isn’t always straightforward.

In this case study, we walk through how we helped a B2B client extend the limits of Power BI with performance and flexibility. First, we connected Salesforce to Power BI. Then we built a custom React-based web app — delivering a fully usable reporting interface with inputs back into Salesforce.

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The Challenge

Our client, a growing international sales team, needed:

• Visibility into pipeline and performance across countries

• Insight into sales team activity, regional progress, and rep-specific goals

• The ability to track leads and update records

• Sharing insights with leadership and operations teams in real time

They were using:

• Power BI for reporting

• Salesforce for records

• Manual exports and notifications

• Collaboration between tools & apps

So they turned to Power BI.

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Phase 1: Connecting Salesforce to Power BI

We helped the client:

• Set up a secure data pipeline from Salesforce into Power BI

• Create dashboards to track sales performance, forecast accuracy, and rep activity

• Build region-based reports using Power BI’s DAX engine and slicers

• Align dashboards with leadership KPIs

• Stream data hourly for near-real-time accuracy

This delivered quick wins:

• Leadership got visibility

• Sales got benchmarks

• Operations got KPIs

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The Limitations

As adoption grew, so did the pain points:

• Power BI’s existing interface felt unusable for non-technical users

• The dashboards were often read-only — no way to interact or update records

• Changing filters & segments slowed things down

• Mobile performance was inconsistent

• It became difficult to grow and iterate

It became obvious: Power BI was great for visibility, but not for action.

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Phase 2: Building a Custom Web App on Top of Salesforce

To solve the limitations, we built a custom React-based web application tailored for sales and ops.

Key Features:

Interactive Dashboards

• Chart filters, inputs, status changes — all beautifully built with React and Salesforce’s API

Sales Rep Quick Updates

• Enable reps to quickly update deal status, notes, and probabilities inline — no Salesforce login needed

Data Checkpoints and QA

• Internal QA features let leadership validate data quality using OpenAI

Smart Reports

• Input → insight. Teams update while data quality improves

Secure, Role-Based Access Control

• Different teams see different data, over the very same pipeline

Seamless Mobile Experience

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Results After 60 Days

The app became the daily cockpit for the revenue team — combining insights, actions, and AI suggestions in one tool.

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Why This Worked

• Salesforce remained the source of truth

• The custom app supported real-time interaction

• The frontend supported reporting and interactive execution

• The solution was scalable, easy to extend, and mobile-first

• No more switching tools or breaking flows

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Want to Go Beyond Read-Only Dashboards?

We build tailor-made reporting tools and front-line, interactive tools that pull from Salesforce — or your existing CRM, ERP, or operations stack.

👉 Book a data infrastructure audit

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