Use the power BI Enterprise Gateway for multiple c...

Kraaitje · ‎10-25-2016

We are developing a central SQL database for Power BI reporting for multiple clients. The ideal situation would be if we can upload reports to our own domain, for example bi@company.com and share the reports outside our organisation to client1@client.com and client22@client22.com. The client can sign in with their own account and open the reports and create their own dashboards. Because this is not possible (only share with a direct link), we are investigating other options.

We can deploy the report for example to client1@client.com power bi but our enterprise gateway points to our own company's domain bi@company.com . Does someboby have a solution so we can use a single server as a source for multiple power bi customers using a different domain?

I can imagine to add a new server for each client that's in the same domain and install the power bi enterprise gateway on this server and attach it to the client's power bi environment. The server can connect to the server which holds the sql database (do I need to install the sql server native client? ) ? This will cost extra money and maybe there's a more easy solution

Thansk for thinking with me!

Anonymous · ‎10-26-2016

Hi @Kraaitje,

Currently, we are not able to use Power BI on-premises gateway in a single server for clients in different domains. An idea about installing multiple instances of the on-premises gateway running on one server has been submitted in the following idea, please vote it. In your scenario, when you install on-premises gateway on the servers added for clients, there is no need to install SQL Server Native Client.

https://ideas.powerbi.com/forums/265200-power-bi-ideas/suggestions/16267018-support-for-multiple-ins...

In addition, another method is to create content pack for your dataset,reports and dashboard, then publish the content pack to customers. However, content pack can be only shared with users inside your organization. According to this idea, the feature that publishing content pack outside organization is under review.

Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

Kraaitje · ‎10-26-2016

@Anonymous Yes that would be the solution (create content packs outside the organisation) but it's not available yet and I don't know if it will ever come!

Another option could be to push the database to an Azure database and connect the reports to this database to refresh the data. The disadvantages of this solution are extra costs and extra code to write to get the data in Azure.

Anonymous · ‎10-26-2016

@Kraaitje wrote:

@Anonymous Yes that would be the solution (create content packs outside the organisation) but it's not available yet and I don't know if it will ever come!

Another option could be to push the database to an Azure database and connect the reports to this database to refresh the data. The disadvantages of this solution are extra costs and extra code to write to get the data in Azure.

Hi @Kraaitje,

Yes. The feasture that publish content pack outside organization is not avaliable yet. Please vote that idea.

In your scenario, when sharing reports to external users, there is no direct method to give them access to the data source in Power BI. You would need to weigh the cost of Azure database and gateway on multiple servers, then choose the appropriate one.

Thanks,
Lydia

Kraaitje · ‎10-26-2016

@Anonymous Or maybe the new SSAS Azure solution will work with role level security without the need of active directory. I can connect the SSAS to my on premise database and connect the reports to this model. I can pass the users email to the model and filter the rows...