Configuring Power BI Desktop to work with R

Once you have installed the R engines necessary for the development of your reports and the RStudio IDE, you must configure Power BI Desktop so that it properly references these tools. This is really a very simple task:

1. In Power BI Desktop, go to the File menu, click on the Options and settings tab, and then click on Options:

   Figure 2.14 – Opening the Power BI Desktop Options and settings window

2. In the Options window, click on the R scripting tab on the left. The contents of the panel on the right will update, giving you the option to select the R engine to reference and the R IDE to use for R visuals:

   Figure 2.15 – Choosing the engine and the IDE to work with in Power BI Desktop

3. As you can see, Power BI Desktop automatically identifies the installed R engines and IDEs. For the moment, select the latest version of the engine (in our case, it is 4.0.2), in order to be aligned with the one already selected in RStudio...