Please share your thoughts on the new in-place dataset sharing for Power BI datasets (preview)

[varunjain]

Hit Reply and let us know what you think of the cross tenant in-place dataset sharing for Power BI datasets. To learn more about this feature, please visit this blogpost or our documentation.

Here are some areas that we'd like to hear about in particular:

• Ease of use
• Performance
• Documentation
• Authoring experience in Desktop
• Governance and admin controls

Thanks - we look forward to hearing your feedback!

-Power BI B2B Team

[ugurdemir]

Power BI Admin portal parameters are a bit confusing, to be honest to find any setting from admin portal is a bit hard.

My scenario is a report that uses a sharepoint list as data source. I set the parameters from admin portal

* External data sharing (preview) : Enabled

* Guest users can work with shared semantic models in their own tenants : Enabled

* Allow specific users to turn on external data sharing : Enabled

I enabled the parameter "External sharing" in my report's semantic model settings.

I shared the semantic model with a guest user (from another tenant) with build and read permissions

Guest user got the share dataset notification mail. User tested the link and it is working.  

------- The Guest User side ------  👇

User has fabric trial licence. 

I set the guest user admin portal parameters

* Users can accept external data shares (preview) : Enabled

Guest user created a new report (in power bi desktop) from external data (one lake hub)

User saved the report and published it to his own tenant. 

Report is working fine.

Provider updated the report, he added a new measure.

Guest user refreshed his report and see the new measure in his own report and can use it in visuals. 

BUT i had a problem about creating a report from shared dataset on PBI service (web) side. User can create a report from shared dataset, can save the report in My workspace (in provider tenant), but he can not edit the report that he has created a minute ago. 

[DennisSchlein]

Hi 

I have a fabric subscription and a personal pro account on our 1 domain.

I have tried enabeling sharing of semantic models to externals. Created my 2. user in our azure tenant.

I have access using sql endpoint with my 2. account. But I cannot access semantik models or shared lakehouses via desktop designer.

I can see that data when logging into app.powerbi.com using my 2. account:

[dwa777]

I did get this to work successfully in Power BI Desktop but setting up the workspace hosting the semantic model is a bit confusing. Is there any chance this cross-tenant semantic model sharing will be available in Power BI Report Builder soon? If it's in there now as an option I can't find it. If so please direct me to where to find this option. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

No plans to support direct connection to models shared externally directly from report builder in the short term. But to unblock you can create a dataset in power bi desktop that consumes the external dataset, and then publish this new model to your local tenant. This new model (which has both external and data from tenant can be consumed from power bi report builder.

[IndyColtsFan]

I've not been able to get it working at all.  I'm not sure what the issue is.  When I share the Dataset with an external user, he always gets the "Sorry - we couldn't find that semantic model" error when clicking on "Open this dataset" in the email that was sent.  The "External Org" tabs never appear.  Assume I've missed a step somewhere but I'm not sure where.  The dataset has the sharing options set in settings.

[TheOA]

Unfortunately, this is not working. 

[shyammayhs]

Hey @TheOA 

What issues are you facing?

[TheOA]

It is not possible to find the datasets after having enabled the settings described in the documentation

[shyammayhs]

Hi team,

We are in the process of making the semantic models available to an External client and I noticed that the possibility for the external user to connect to the semantic model on Power BI Desktop or Excel does not work any more?

Is this correct? Considering I carried a number of tests in the middle of December 2023...

Thanks.

[KaySunset]

Hi Power BI B2B Team,

as we are a holding with various subsidiaries and share data with lots of them, this could be a great feature for us.

We're facing show-stoppers though.

We have been hosting an AAS Cube in the holding's MS tenant and shared it with multiple subisidaries for them to build own reports in PBIX and Excel with.

With those external sharing capabilites and our newly licenced Premium Capacity, we'd now like to migrate from our AAS cube to the premium capacity, such that we can save the cost occuring with the AAS. 

This is where the issues mainly occur.

Within the holding's tenant, changing our existings PBIX's and excel files from AAS source to new semantic model source has worked like a charm. We just put in the premium workspace URL into the AAS connection string.

Trying that on our subsidiaries side, however, leads to an immediate connection error. Seems like the live connection it uses is not supported with external sharing, at least that's the reason we came up with. Hence, we would have to rebuild all existing PBIX files with the external semantic model, if we wanted to use it. We did try a workaround by changing a PBIX from live connection to direct query --> publishing it --> redownload --> switch data source to the holding's semantic model. There, however, the tab for external datasets does not occur, so it is not choosable.

What is more, in Excel the external semantic models do not seem to work at all. Are we doing something wrong, or is this a limitation that I am not aware of? If so, will this be resolved at some point, or will it also not work in future?

BR,

Kathrin

[shyammayhs]

Hi Kathrin,

I saw on a Microsoft article that Excel/Power BI Desktop does not work for External users?
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/enterprise/service-admin-azure-ad-b2b - found at the bottom in the limitations part. Could this be the reason why?

I am yet to test the External user access and will see what the output is.

Thanks.

[GabrielSantos]

I am exploring this functionality from two perspectives:

• A consumer (guest user) can connect to a dataset hosted in a provider tenant, author reports, and publish back to the provider tenant. This has worked successfully so far, despite limitations that are written about here (direct publishing from Power BI desktop to Power BI service, guest users can't connect to dataset in the Power BI service in desktop application). Pleasantly surprised this works and I hope it continues to work.
• A consumer (guest user) can connect to a dataset hosted in a provider tenant from within the consumer tenant, author reports, and publish back to the consumer tenant. Sounds like what this is trying to do. This is where I'm encountering issues. I'm able to, as a consumer, connect to a provider dataset in Power BI desktop, author a report, and publish to the consumer tenant. However, I receive this message when trying to view the report in the service:
  • 

    I haven't been able to find a resolution yet. Is anyone else experiencing this?

[Anonymous]

Hi Gabriel,

This sounds like a limitation from the preview where there is a MultiFactor mismatch between one of the tenants (documented as part of the MFA requirements https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/collaborate-share/service-dataset-external-org-share-abou...) .

I'd suspect in this case the guest tenant might not require multi-factor for this user, but the provider tenant does.

[GabrielSantos]

Thank you @Anonymous ! Do you know if there are any plans to remove that limitation in general release? Ideally we can retain MFA at the provider level regardless of the consumer policies.

It also seems like this is leading us towards guest accounts being able to publish in provider and/or consumer tenant, based on needs. This would be incredibly valuable to someone like us, an ISV who has client report authors. Ideally, we'd like to issue them a guest account so they can author reports  in Power BI desktop and publish back to the provider tenant. However, since there were previous limitations about guest users connecting to a provider dataset in Power BI desktop, we've been issuing users within the provider AD, which has grown quite cumbersome to manage.

[iBusinessBI]

Great feature!
I can only see the dataset shared with me externally in the Service only (under "From external orgs" tab).

But I do not see it in my Desktop. I do have a guest user in their AD and also have a build permission.
I do have all the preview features turned on in the Desktop.
I am able to build a report based on this Dataset in my Service, but not in the Desktop. (The option to download the report from the Service is disabled).
Please help.

[shyammayhs]

The dataset does show up for me on my desktop PBI app, but sometimes you have to flick between the different tabs when connecting for the dataset to show up

[Cquatre01]

Hey,
First of all thank you very much for this functionality which will enormously simplify the life of the companies which work with subsidiaries.
In my case I test this functionality with several of my subsidiaries, I have a strange behavior. After a while there is a connection problem that appears on the datasets share, if I delete the dataset and send again it to the service it works.
The error message my users are getting is:

"Stack Trace Message:

An error occurred while loading the model. Verify that the connection information is correct and that you have permissions to access the data source."

I don't understand why this message appears after a while and not immediately
I have the full error message if needed

[ParulBansal]

Cquatre01, where do you get this error : In Service or in Desktop? What are you trying to do when you get this error?

[Cquatre01]

Hi tanks for your message, my users have this error in the desktop when they want to display the list of external dataset :

[FloridaMan55051]

I'm no longer getting an authentication error. I can see the datasets in Power BI Service, but they are not there in Power BI Desktop. I cannot build a composite model with the datasets unavailable in desktop. What am I missing?