Distributing Power BI Dashboards to External Users

[Raghav_Singh]

What would be the best way to distribute reports to users that do not have a Power BI account?

I'm creating dashboards that I'd like to share with users outside my organization. There would be several thousand such users. I would prefer not to send the link to the report and share just the dashboard. Can I ask them to get a free account in order to open the dashboard? I tried using the tiles add-in for Powerpoint and Excel but it does not work reliably. 

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @Raghav_Singh,

Do you mean share dashboard in Power BI service rather than in on-premise Power BI report server? 

With sharing a dashboard, you and your recipients need a Power BI Pro license, or the content needs to be in a Premium capacity. As the recipients don't have Power BI account, you can publish the report to web if the report doesn't have sensitive data, see: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-publish-to-web. Or you can print the dashboard: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-print

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu 

[Raghav_Singh]

Thanks for the suggestions. We have a premium license. What we're trying to do is distribute dashboards that are customized to client needs, built from a single report.  Can we ask clients to sign up for a free license so we can send them the dashboards instead of a link?

[bvenu2712]

Hi @Raghav_Singh

I need your help, on how to add/invite external users who are not part of our domain to use Power BI dashboards?

Thanks,

Venu Bolla

[Raghav_Singh]

Glad to try and help. What would you like to know?

[bvenu2712]

Thank you for your quick response @Raghav_Singh.

I would like to know how to add external users to access power BI report server dashbopards/reports.

I got the below error when I tried to add them.

Error: The user or group name is not recognized.

Appreciate your help!

Thanks,

Venu Bolla

[Raghav_Singh]

An external user has to have a Power BI account in order to access a dashboard. Power BI doesn't provide something like a "reader" that allows anyone to open a report. You can publish a report (not dashboard) and share the link but then it can be accessed by anyone that has the link.