Report Sharing Options

[AbhinavJoshi]

Hello,

I have a Power BI pro liscencse, and I am wondering what options I have to share the Power BI Report file with users within organisation who don't have a Power BI liscencse. I am not looking to share via images, Power Point, and Power BI File (.pbix). Also, I'm not looking to publish the report to web and make it accessible to all the users on the internet.  I've also looked into sharing Power BI reports to SharePoint pages but not sure which users would be able to view it. 

Please let me know if you have any suggestions for me.

Thanks,

Abhinav

[AbhinavJoshi]

Hi @Bipin-Lala and @Anonymous. Thank you for your respnoses. I have one more question, does  "My Workspace" personal workspace in Power BI Serivice comes under premium per capacity by default. I see a diamond icon in front of it. 

Thanks,

[Bipin-Lala]

Hi @AbhinavJoshi,

By default, "My Workspace" is not hosted on premium capacity, though you can always set it later.

Diamond icon does mean that your workspace may be hosted in a premium capacity. To confirm, you can go to "My Workspace" -> Workspace Settings -> Premium

[AbhinavJoshi]

I see, mine is in trial capacity. When I try to change it to pro mode, I get a popup notifying that it will be removed from premium capacity. I wonder if trial version has any premium features. 

[Bipin-Lala]

Microsoft Fabric does use premium per capacity and hence Fabric Trial does give you access to a full fabric feature set and experiences, by allocating you a dedicated set of resources (64 Capacity Units to be precise). That's why the popup shows up when you select Pro license since it will move the workspace from a dedicated capacity to a shared space.

[AbhinavJoshi]

Hi, thanks for making this clear. I have came across a situation where my fabric trial is not expiring, whenever I publish something to Power BI Service, my fabric trail expiry date is set back to 59 days remaining. Any idea why this would happen.

[Bipin-Lala · Accepted solution]

Fabric is in public preview and trial can be extended anytime at Microsoft's discretion.

I have also seen a lot of people reporting that their fabric trial keeps on extending on Reddit.

[Anonymous]

Hi @AbhinavJoshi ,

Bipin-Lala's solution very good ,  Power BI Premium Capacity is a good way to share report to others who has free license.

You can also use the APP to put the report you want to share inside the APP, and subsequently, inside Audience, you can select the people you want to share it with. Other people will be able to see your report as soon as they download your app.

Below is official link will help you:

Publish an app in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Best Regards,

Xianda Tang

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[AbhinavJoshi]

Thanks for replying @Bipin-Lala . Just wanted to be sure, if the report is hosted through Power BI Premium, free users can also view the report? 

[Bipin-Lala]

Hi @AbhinavJoshi ,

If the report is hosted in Power BI Premium Capacity, users with free licenses will also be able to view the reports and apps shared with them. Your org will have to purchase a dedicated set of resources that can be used for hosting premium workspaces.

Please note that it differs from the Power BI Premium-per-user license, which includes all features that come with the Power BI PRO license, along with some AI capabilities and extra features. This does not support sharing reports with free users.

[Bipin-Lala]

Hi Abhinav,

I am afraid that you don't have many options left to share reports within an organization without users having PRO license, unless you publish your reports in a premium capacity.

As per the official documentation and various blogs, the various ways to share your reports are - 

1. Shared Workspaces
2. Power BI Apps
3. Export as PDF or PPT
4. Print
5. Embed in SharePoint
6. Embed in Web
7. Share/ collaborate via Teams etc. 

Out of these, Embedding to a website does not require the users/ viewers to have a license to view the reports (apart from exporting). I believe you have already done your research and came to the same conclusion, hence I am afraid you are not left with many options to share the reports as per your constraints.

If you are part of a big organization or a large Power BI Tenant, and if sharing reports with free users is a big concern, then investing in Power BI Premium Capacity is something to give thought about, as it does help in saving licensing costs in scenarios having large number of viewers and small number of report authors.