Forum Discussion

pmurz's avatar
pmurz
Advocate III
4 years ago

User lookup during a session

This is probably a bridge too far, ... but here goes:

 

Is there a way for a Power BI web report to allow a user to dynamically lookup ID fields to show names from a decode table available only during a session?   

The situtaion is that I have a web report that shows USER_ID fields where names would be much more understandable.   The system does not have the user names, but the users of the report do.   They have access to a table hat crosswalks USER_ID to USER_NAME values.  

It would be great it the web report could use that table to show the reports with the USER_NAME values when that table is available.   

Any help or insight is appreciated.

 

Need Help

6 Replies

  • v-jingzhang's avatar
    v-jingzhang
    Community Support
    4 years ago

    Hi pmurz 

     

    What do you mean by the "Power BI web report"? Is it a report created by you or a report generated by Power BI like usage metrics report?

     

    Best Regards,
    Community Support Team _ Jing

  • KNP's avatar
    KNP
    Super User
    4 years ago

    What sort of "Table" are the user names stored in?

    Can you not bring those into the Power BI report?

    Is the report published to the service?

     

  • pmurz's avatar
    pmurz
    Advocate III
    4 years ago

    Hi v-jingzhang and KNP ,

    Thank you for the replies.  Here are my answers and a refined question:

    • I use Power BI Desktop to publish dashboards and reports using  Power BI Service.
    • My reports have an ID in them where a name would be much more valuable.   I do not have the proper names in my databases, so must use the ID values. 
    • My client users access these published dashboards and reports through Power BI Service (via browser)
    • My client users have access to tables that map the ID to Proper Names

    Is there a way that Power BI Service would let them use my reports, but lookup the Proper Names dynamically from their tables?

    Thank you!

    • KNP's avatar
      KNP
      Super User
      4 years ago

      Back to my first question and your last bullet point. What/where are these "tables"?

      Excel, database, printed hard copies, SharePoint list?

      If you don't have/can't get access to them, the only (complex) way I can think of is to try and incorporate a PowerAutomate solution, but you're not giving enough info to offer anything meaningful.

       

      • pmurz's avatar
        pmurz
        Advocate III
        4 years ago

        Thank you, KNP ,

        My clients are generally large firms or enterprises that can publish secure tables / data for their users in a variety of ways.   That data (with names) will be available to them behind their firewall and would  be available for the session when they are connected to my published reports.   Many of the clients use Power BI in their organizations, but some do not.   I do not have any access to these lookup tables (ID -> Proper Name) , so is not available when I publish the report.   I could point to a table or location, but only they would have access to it during the runtime viewing.   That is why my published reports show ID only.   I would like to know if there is a way that Power BI lets a runtime table lookup occur that could convert ID to Proper Name for their viewing.