Category: Publish and share in Power BI

Introducing Power BI Mobile

To keep track of your data while you’re on the move, you can use one of Power BI’s touch-friendly mobile applications for iOS, Android, or Windows devices.

Video: Introducing Power BI mobile apps

Sign in to your account by using your Power BI service account information. The first screen displays all the content to which you have access, including reports, dashboards, and groups. The workspace also includes sample dashboards that you can explore for inspiration.

Tap any dashboard to open it. Within a dashboard, you can tap a dashboard tile to focus on it in a larger view. Note any insights that you discover by tapping the Annotate button in the top-right corner. The Annotate feature allows you to draw on a focused tile to highlight areas of interest. The annotation tools are along the bottom of the screen.

Share your annotated tile by tapping the Share link in the top right-hand corner.

For more information, see What are the Power BI mobile apps?

Create workspaces in Power BI

In this unit, you will create a group that defines a set of users who have access to specific dashboards, reports, and data.

Video: Create workspaces

Workspaces are places to collaborate with colleagues to create and refine collections of dashboards, reports, and paginated reports. There are two types of groups in Power BI:

• Classic workspaces – groups are based on the groups in Office 365. If you’ve been using Office 365 groups to manage your group’s email, calendar, and documents, then you’ll find that Power BI offers the same features. When you create a group in Power BI, you’re actually creating an Office 365 group.
• New workspaces – are now the default workspace in Power BI. -Assign workspace roles to user groups: security groups, distribution lists, Office 365 groups, and individuals.
• Create a workspace in Power BI without creating an Office 365 group.
• Use more granular workspaces roles for more flexible permissions management in a workspace.
• The Power BI admin can control who can create workspaces in Power BI

Setting up a new workspace

In Workspace settings in the admin portal, admins can use the Create workspaces (new workspace experience) setting to allow everybody or nobody in an organization to create new workspace experience workspaces. They can also limit creation to members of specific security groups.

Setting up a classic workspace

Imagine setting up a new finance group. Start in My Workspace with the dashboards, reports, and datasets that you’ve created or that someone has shared with you.

Expand My Workspace and select Create a group.

Give the group a name, for example, Finance. Power BI makes sure that the name doesn’t exist on the domain.

Set the privacy level by deciding whether anyone in your organization or only its members can see the contents of the group.

In the Create a group dialog box, type email addresses, security groups, and distribution lists. Select Add to make the set of users members of the group, and then select Save to save the group.

For more information, see Create classic workspaces in Power BI  and Organize work in the new workspaces in Power BI

Build apps

In this lesson, you will create an app with artifacts that already exist in Power BI, and then you will share the app with colleagues.

Video: Build apps

Start in the Power BI service. In My Workspace, you will create an app that includes your dashboard, the report underneath, and the dataset. Then, you will share the app with people in your organization so they can reuse the artifacts. In the workspace list view, decide which dashboards and reports you want Included in app.

Select the Publish app button in the upper right to start the process of creating and publishing an app from the workspace.

On Setup, fill in the name and description to help people find the app. You can set a theme color to personalize it. You can also add a link to a support site.

Choose whether to distribute the app to specific people or to groups, and then give the app a title. Provide a detailed description in the Description box so that people know what your app provides.

On the bottom of the dialog box, you can upload an image for the app and then select the dashboard to include in the app. When you publish, the app is added to the organization’s content gallery.

For more information, see Publish an app in Power BI

Use apps

In this lesson, you will create an instance of an app for everyone in a group.

Video: Use apps

Start in My Workspace, select the group that you previously created, select My Organization to browse your content packs, and then connect to your app.

Power BI imports the dashboards, reports, and datasets that are in the app.

When you select the dataset, Power BI asks if you want to personalize the app. Create a copy of the app that you can use to make changes to yet keep it disconnected from the published version of the app. By creating a copy, you won’t automatically receive updates if the app creator makes changes to the published version of the app. You can edit the dashboard, the report, and even the dataset if you want.

Update apps

To edit an app that you created previously and see how other people use your app, start in the Power BI Service in My Workspace. Anytime that you make changes to the dashboard, you’ll get a reminder that you’ve changed something that you’ve shared with others in an app. Power BI will prompt you to update the shared version.

Return to the settings icon and select View app to see the apps that you’ve already published. When you select Edit, you’ll return to the screen where you can edit the title and description. This time, the screen includes an Update button.

Power BI processes those changes and publishes the updated app to the app gallery. Anyone who has connected to your app will receive a message that the app has changed, and they will have the option to accept the changes or to keep the older version. As the app owner, you can manage the versions that your colleagues are using.

For more information, see Change your published app

Integrate OneDrive for Business with Power BI

You can use your Power BI and Office365 groups to collaborate and share by using Microsoft OneDrive for Business.

Video: Use data from Microsoft OneDrive

OneDrive for Business is a potential storage location for your Power BI content that provides version history. You can share your files with an Office365 group to enable several people to work on the same Power BI or Excel files.

To connect to a PBIX (Power BI Desktop) file on OneDrive for Business, sign in to the Power BI service and select Get Data. Under Create new content, select Files, and then select OneDrive – Business. Highlight the file and then select Connect.

Your content appears on the left-hand side navigation bar. File changes on the OneDrive for Business page will automatically reflect in the Power BI environment and will be recorded in the version history.

For more information, see Connect to files stored in OneDrive for your Power BI app workspace

Publish to web

In this lesson, you’re going to share a Power BI report on a webpage or share it through email. This feature of Power BI is often referred to as Publish to web.

Video: Publish reports to web

In the Power BI service, select the report that you want to share so that it’s displayed on the canvas. Then from the menu, select File > Publish to web. A dialog box will appear, explaining that you’ll receive an embed code that will allow you to include the report on a website or in an email.

When you select Create embed code, Power BI presents another dialog box stating that you’re about to share your data with everyone on the Internet. Verify that sharing publicly is acceptable before moving ahead.

Power BI presents a dialog with two links:

• A link that you can share in an email, which shows the report as a webpage
• HTML code (a link plus within an iframe) so that you can embed the report directly into a webpage

For the HTML link, you can choose from predefined sizes for the embedded report, or you can modify the iframe code and customize its size.

You can paste the email link into a browser and see your report as a webpage. You can interact with that webpage just as you would if you were viewing the report in Power BI. The following image shows a Publish to web page when its link was copied directly from that dialog box into a browser.

You can also embed that iframe link into a blog post, website, or Sway.

If you want to delete an embedded code that you created, Power BI can help. In Power BI, select the gear icon in the upper-right corner and then select Manage embed codes.

The Power BI workspace shows the embed codes that you’ve created.

For more information, see Publish to web from Power BI

Introduction to content packs, security, and groups

Likely, you will want to share your reports and dashboards with your coworkers and friends at some point. With Power BI, publishing and sharing your reports and dashboards is straightforward.

Tasks in this module:

1. Publish reports
2. Print and export reports
3. Build apps
4. Integrate with OneDrive
5. Publish to the web

Video: Introduction to publishing reports

Share and collaborate with colleagues in Power BI

Power BI offers various ways of sharing and collaborating with colleagues on your dashboards, reports, and data including:

1. Publish your reports from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI service.
2. Create Apps that package a dashboard, report, and dataset to send to your colleagues, who can use the content pack as a starting point and further enhance it.
3. Create Groups, which you can use as a security model to identify a subset of users who have access to dashboards, reports, and datasets that you create.
4. Publish to the web so that live reports can be embedded in a webpage.

Publish Power BI Desktop reports

Publishing your reports to the Power BI service is fast and simple.

Video: Publish reports

After you’ve completed writing your report, select the Publish button on the Home tab.

Power BI packages your report and data, including visualizations, queries, and custom measures, and uploads them to the Power BI service.

Note: It’s common to refer to Power BI Desktop reports as .pbix files, which is the extension that they’re given in Microsoft Windows.

When the upload is complete, a dialog box appears, informing you that the publishing process succeeded, and provides a link to your report in the Power BI service.

Print and export dashboards and reports

Occasionally, you might want to print a report or dashboard for a meeting or for sharing with others. Power BI provides a few ways for you to make these printouts.

Video: Print reports

In the Power BI service, select Export in the top-left side of the service and then select Print this page to open a print dialog box.

Export data from a visual

You can also export the data from any visual in the Power BI service. Select the ellipsis on any visual and then select Export data. You can save to a Microsoft Excel file or a .CSV file.

You can also print or export directly from a report. When you are viewing a report in the Power BI service, select Export > Print to open the print dialog box.

Manually republish and refresh your data

To update reports and datasets that you’ve already published from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI service, select Publish on the Home tab.

When you republish a report in the Power BI service, you’re prompted to confirm that you want to replace the previous dataset and reports.

When you select Replace, the datasets and reports in the Power BI service are overwritten with the new datasets and reports.

For more information, see Export data from visualizations