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Discrete and continuous frames can be considered as positive operator-valued measures (POVMs) that have integral representations using rank-one operators. However, not every POVM has an integral representation. One goal of this paper is to examine the POVMs that have finite-rank integral representations. More precisely, we present a necessary and sufficient condition under which a positive operator-valued measure $$F: \Omega \to B(H)$$ has an integral representation of the form $$F(E) =\sum_{k=1}^{m} \int_{E}\, G_{k}(\omega)\otimes G_{k}(\omega) d\mu(\omega)$$ for some weakly measurable maps $$G_{k} \ (1\leq k\leq m) $$ from a measurable space $$\Omega$$ to a Hilbert space $$\mathcal{H}$$ and some positive measure $$\mu$$ on $$\Omega$$. Similar characterizations are also obtained for projection-valued measures. As special consequences of our characterization we settle negatively a problem of Ehler and Okoudjou about probability frame representations of probability POVMs, and prove that an integral representable probability POVM can be dilated to a integral representable projection-valued measure if and only if the corresponding measure is purely atomic.