Requirements and limits

For administrators, IT and partners

This page collects what Sintel BI needs and where its limits are, in one place. You don't need it to build dashboards. Who does what?

Where Sintel BI runs

Requirement	Details
SharePoint Online	Sintel BI is a SharePoint Framework (SPFx) app for SharePoint Online in Microsoft 365. SharePoint Server (on-premises) isn't supported.
Modern sites only	It can't be set up on classic team sites. Convert a classic site to modern first.
Browser	A modern browser such as Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome or Firefox. Internet Explorer isn't supported.
Network	Users' browsers must reach Sintel's servers. See Hosts to allow.
Visitors group	Setup needs the site's associated Visitors group. See Lists used by Sintel BI.

Licences

Your licence decides how many dashboards you can have and which data source types you see (other sites, Excel and SQL). Licences and support levels are listed on the pricing page.

• When you reach your licence's dashboard limit, no new dashboards can be created.
• If you have more dashboards than your licence allows, dashboards can only be listed and deleted until you're back within the limit.

Phones and tablets

On phones and tablets (including iPads) Sintel BI is view-only for everyone, site owners included. You can open dashboards, but you can't create, change or delete anything. Use a computer to build and edit.

SharePoint lists and libraries

• All items by default. A data source loads every item in the list. Top Count in the data source settings sets a maximum.
• Filter large lists. A data source filter is applied when the items are read from SharePoint, so only matching items are loaded. This is the best option for large lists (tens of thousands of items).
• Let the dashboard filter at the source. Dropdown and date filters can change the data source filter with Backend filtering, so a dashboard only loads the items the user picked. See Dashboard override.
• 12 lookup columns. A data source can't show more than 12 lookup-type columns (SharePoint's list view lookup threshold). See Error viewing data in a data source.
• List view threshold. If SharePoint refuses a request because of the list view threshold, the widget shows a message saying so. See Error displaying data on a dashboard.
• Viewers need read access. Data is read with each user's own SharePoint permissions, so viewers need read access to the source lists.

Excel

• Supported file types: .xlsx, .xls and .csv. See Excel.
• The file must be in your own tenant. Each user's browser downloads the whole file and reads it, using their own SharePoint permissions.
• Excel data sources can't be filtered with a data source filter. Keep the sheet to the rows the dashboard needs.

MS SQL

Limit	Value
Rows loaded into a dashboard	No limit: every row the table, view or query returns is loaded
Query timeout when loading data	120 seconds
Connect timeout when you click Validate	15 seconds
Connect timeout when loading data	From the connection string (Connection Timeout, 15 seconds if not set)
Rows shown by Test query	The first 10

Return only the rows and columns the dashboard needs. See MS SQL: timeouts and row limits.

Things Sintel BI can't do

You want to	What to do instead
Colour a whole grid row based on a condition	Colours are set per column: use Show as RAG or Pill on the column that drives the colour. See Grid: Show as. Alternate row shading is available under Layout & Appearance.
Use SumIf, CountIf or AverageIf with more than one condition	These helpers take one list of criteria values and one criterion. For several conditions, filter the rows yourself, see Aggregated fields and Helpers.
Build or edit on a phone or tablet	Use a computer. Phones and tablets are view-only.