Certified custom visuals

• 05/9/2019
• 5 minutes to read
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What are certified custom visuals?

Certified custom visuals are visuals in the Marketplace that meet certain specified code requirements that the Microsoft Power BI team has tested and approved. Once a custom visual is certified, it offers more features. Such as you can export to PowerPoint, and you can display the visual in emails received when a user subscribes to report pages.

Certified custom visuals are used like standard custom visuals. Certified custom visuals can be added to the Power BI service, a Power BI Desktop report, and viewed with Power BI mobile and Power BI Embedded.

The tests performed are designed to check the visual does not access external services or resources. Microsoft is not the author of third-party custom visuals, and we advise customers to contact the author directly to verify the functionality of such visual.

The certification process is an optional process, and it is up to the developers to decide if they want their visual in the marketplace to be certified.

Uncertified custom visuals do not necessarily mean unsafe visuals. Some visuals aren't certified because they don’t comply with one or more of the certification requirements. For example, connecting to an external service like map visuals, or visuals using commercial libraries.

Are you a Web developer and interested in creating your own visualizations and adding them to Microsoft AppSource? See Develop a Power BI custom visual to learn how.

Removal of Power BI Certified custom visuals

Microsoft can remove a visual from the certified list at its discretion.

Getting a custom visual certified

Certification requirements

To get your custom visual certified, make sure your custom visual complies with the below:

• Microsoft AppSource approved. Your custom visual should be in our marketplace.

• Custom visual is written with versioned API v2.5 or higher.

• Code repository is available for review by Power BI team (for instance, source code (JavaScript or TypeScript) in human readable format is available to us, through GitHub).

  Note

  You don’t have to publicly share your code in Github.

• Code repository requirements:

  • Must include the minimal required set of files:
    • .gitignore
    • capabilities.json
    • pbiviz.json
    • package.json
    • package-lock.json
    • tsconfig.json
  • Must not include node_modules folder (add node_modules to .gitingore file)
  • npm install command must not return any errors.
  • npm audit command must not return any warnings with high or moderate level.
  • pbiviz package command must not return any errors.
  • Must include TSlint from Microsoft with no overridden configuration, and this command must not return any lint errors.
  • The compiled package of the Custom Visual must match submitted package (md5 hash of both files should be equal).

• Source Code requirements:

  • The visual must support Rendering Events API.
  • Ensure no arbitrary/dynamic code is run (bad: eval(), unsafe to use of settimeout(), requestAnimationFrame(), setinterval(some function with user input), running user input/data).
  • Ensure DOM is manipulated safely (bad: innerHTML, D3.html(<some user/data input>), use sanitization for user input/data before adding it to the DOM.
  • Ensure there are no javascript errors/exceptions in the browser console for any input data. Users might use your visual with a different range of unexpected data, so the visual must not fail. You can use this sample report as a test dataset.

• If any properties in capabilities.json are changed, make sure that they do not break existing user's reports.

• Make sure the visual complies with the guidelines for Power BI visuals. No watermarks are allowed.

• Uses only public reviewable OSS components (JS libraries or TypeScript that are public. The source code is available for reviewing and doesn't have known vulnerabilities). We can't verify a custom visual using a commercial component.

• Does not access external services or resources, including but not limited to, no HTTP/S or WebSocket requests go out of Power BI to any services.

Process for submitting a custom visual for certification

To submit a custom visual for certification:

1. Send an email to Power BI Custom Visuals Support team (pbicvsupport@microsoft.com). In the email, include the following information:

   • Title: Visual Certification Request
   • Link to GitHub repository where the human readable source code is hosted
   • Adhere to the requirements
   • Pass the code review

2. The Microsoft Custom Visuals team notifies you when your custom visual is certified and added to the certified list, or is rejected with a report of the issues that need to be fixed. It is the developer’s responsibility to maintain an open line of communication with Microsoft and to update their certified visuals as needed.

List of custom visuals that have been certified

FAQ

For more information about visuals, see Frequently asked questions about certified visuals.

Next steps

• Developing a Power BI custom visual
• Microsoft's custom visual playlist on YouTube
• Visualizations in Power BI
• Custom Visualizations in Power BI
• Publish custom visuals to Microsoft AppSource

More questions? Try the Power BI Community