Sharing Power BI Dashboards

In this chapter, you will learn how to share Power BI dashboard for report sharing, printing, publishing, etc.

Using Power BI Desktop for Report Sharing

Once BI reports are created in Power BI desktop, you can also share the reports with other business users. All BI reports, dashboards, and data can be shared with other colleagues and business users in the organization.

You can share reports using the following methods −

• Publish reports using Power BI Service

• Content Packs combine dashboard, report, and datasets obtained in BI desktop tool

• Create Groups and assign specific rights to different users for report sharing

• Use Power BI mobile apps to access share dashboards and reports

Let us see how to publish a BI report using Power BI desktop tool.

Once the report is created, navigate to the Publish button on the Home tab in Power BI desktop.

Once you select the Publish service, your visuals, custom measures and reports are all packaged and published to Power BI service. Power BI files have an extension .pbix files. When the upload is in process, you get a dialog box that Publishing is in process.

Once the upload is complete, you will get a confirmation message announcing the “Success”. You can also view Quick Insights and open the shared report from the dialog box.

Printing Power BI Dashboards

It is also required sometimes to take printouts of your reports and dashboards. With Power BI, you can take prints of your BI reports and dashboards. To take a Printout of the report, navigate to Power BI service and click the “…” option.

It will open a Print dialog box. You can select the Printer on which you want to take the printout of the report. You can also select different Print options such as Portrait/Landscape, Margins, Header or Scale.

Export Options

In Power BI, you can also use different Export options to export data from BI report. To use the export option, navigate to Power BI service and select the BI report you want to export.

When you click the Export to option, it generates a CSV file. In Power BI, you can also export/view a report directly by navigating to File → Print option.

Publishing Report to Web

In Power BI, it is also possible to publish a BI report to web or share it via email. To publish a report to the web, you have to navigate to Power BI service → My Workspace.

Once you open the report that you want to publish, navigate to the File tab → Publish to Web. Once you select this option, it opens a new dialog that creates an embed code for this report to include in the website or email.

Option says: Get a link or embed code that you can include on a public website. You may use publish to web functionality to share content on a publicly available website. You may not use this functionality to share content internally, which includes through your email, your internal network, or intranet site. Publish a live version that will remain synchronized with the source report in Power BI. Any changes you make to the report will immediately be reflected in the published public version.

When you select - Create Embed code, Power BI prompts that you want to share your data with everyone on the internet.

The following message is displayed: You are about to create an embed code for this report. Once published, anyone on the Internet will be able to access the report and the data it contains, and Microsoft may display the report on a public website or a public gallery.

Before publishing this report, ensure you have the right to share the data and visualizations publicly. Do not publish confidential or proprietary information, or an individual's personal data. If in doubt, check your organization's policies before publishing.

Note − You can publish the report as a web page and any user with the link can view it. The link can be sent via email or it can be used as an iframe in a web page.

Deleting an Embed Code

Let us say, you want to delete an embed code. Navigate to the Gear icon at the top of the screen as shown in the following screenshot. Then go to Manage Embed codes.

To remove an embed code click the ellipsis mark (…) in front of the report name and select the Delete option.

When you click the Delete option, it will ask you if you want to delete publish to web code. Once you are sure, click Delete.

Using Content Pack

In Power BI, you can also share dashboard, report, and dataset as a package with your colleagues. To create a content pack, click the Gear box icon in Power BI workspace as shown in the following screenshot.

Once you select Create content pack, you will be prompted with a new dialog box. You can choose if you want to distribute this content pack with Specific Groups or My Entire Organization.

If you want to share this with specific people, you have to enter email addresses. You can also add a Title and description of the content pack as shown in the following screenshot.

At the bottom of the page, you have an option to select the components you want to publish. You can select from the following −

• Dashboards
• Reports
• Datasets

Editing Content Pack

When a content pack is created, you can also go back and edit the shared objects of the content pack. Whenever you update any dashboard, BI report, you are prompted if you want to update the shared content.

Click the Gear box icon under My Workspace → View Content Pack.

If you see a small icon in front of the name of the content pack, it shows that the content pack is updated. When you select the edit button, you will reach the home screen, where you can create a new content pack.

Power BI accepts all the changes you make to the content pack and publishes the updated content pack to the content pack gallery.