Is there a power bi reader?

[Alessandra]

Hi everyone,

I would like to know if there's a power bi reader version or some way to send the report in reader view, so in that way some users can not see/ have access to the measures, fields, calculated columns.

PS: Some users are also clients, so if I'm the admin of enterprise 1 and I publish the report,  the admin of enterprise 2 would see or download the report and have access to all the measures and calculated columns? or it could only be downloaded in Excel ? 

Please, if there's another way o solution to this, let me know

Thanks!

[ripstaur]

I was extremely disappointed to find this out. I had been transitioning everyone in my organization to using Power BI, but have pulled back from that strategy. We will have to stick with Tableau for the time being, until MS learns what these packages are actually used for. 

[matemusic]

If it is still relevant..

You can disable saving reports in PowerBI Desktop for "reading" users with editing user right in Windows. They can edit and view all content, but they cant save (and damage) it.

On the .pbix file select right click, Settings and Security tab - here you can edit roles for specific users.

[Juramirez]

Hi all,

I'm wondering if Power BI has something like Tableau Reader. There's something like this?

Regards

J.

[billjn]

Sadly, no.  There is no free way to share read-only Power BI content similar to the free Tableau Reader.  There used to be, until last year when Microsoft changed their licensing to require a Power BI Pro license (or Power BI Premium, which is an entirely different pricing model and very expensive for small-mid sized business) for anyone sharing OR viewing shared Power BI content.

Many people suggested at the time that Microsoft offer a low-cost or free type of license for people who are just viewing Power BI content and not creating.  We have many users who fall into the view only category, but we have to buy them the same Power BI Pro license that we buy for the content creators.

You can save a .PBIX file to a shared location and let anyone with Power BI Desktop installed open it, but that means everyone can also modify the file (which is probably not what you want).

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@Alessandra,

You can create dashboard for your report in Power BI Service and directly share the dashboard to the users.

Users can only view the data in the report you share and export data from  the visuals to excel following the guide in this article. If you don't want users to export data, you can disable export data option in admin portal.

Regards,
Lydia

[parry2k · Accepted solution]

I guess you are publishing your report in powerbi service, for external clients, you can add them to workspace as member. They will need powerbi pro license, here is more information:

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-expands-access-to-intelligence-for-external-guest-...

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/webinar-12-7-using-microsoft-flow-to-automate-a-b2b-approva...

[Rolf]

Also, if you share via Power BI pro the users you share with are unable to alter anything. The can select filters and download data though. They just can't edit the report.