Forum Discussion
Helper VApp shared links breaking too often
Hello Community,
I share PBI reports with external users in a B2B scenario. These users are generally very low tech and as such they will be taught one way to access the app and remember that. If anything out of the ordinary happens in that flow it is a guaranteed incident report. I share an app link and ask them to bookmark it.
I am experiencing that these links change way too often and I am unable to find documentation that clearly outlines why or when these links change. If anything know of a good write down I would be interested.
I am also considering setting up re-directs on our own website so the customer would always just go to this static link and then query the PBI API to get a shareable link and just execute that everytime a change is made.
I am looking for any similiar experiences, advice or thoughts about ways to avoid this issue
Hi. I'm not sure whats going on at your tenant. Let me explain how the link works.
Once the report is publish for the first time, a dataset and report is generated with an ID. For that moment the link to a report or dataset exists for any member of the workspace. If you want to share the report with a link for the organization (be aware of the settings when creating that, it's not a good practice).
The link will be avaiable for ever unless the dataset or report is deleted. If a pbix is published and replace the report with the same name, the link still the same ID. The only way it changes is deleting it and publishing again.
The best approach for sharing is using PowerBi Apps. You can pick the reports you want to share from a workspace and create an app with them. Also, you can create audiences to establish which people can see what report. The apps will have only one link for ever unless you remove the app. That way if a report changes inside the workspace or they make maintenance, or they change permissions... the link to the app is always the same.
I hope that helps
1 Reply
- ibarrau
Super User
Hi. I'm not sure whats going on at your tenant. Let me explain how the link works.
Once the report is publish for the first time, a dataset and report is generated with an ID. For that moment the link to a report or dataset exists for any member of the workspace. If you want to share the report with a link for the organization (be aware of the settings when creating that, it's not a good practice).
The link will be avaiable for ever unless the dataset or report is deleted. If a pbix is published and replace the report with the same name, the link still the same ID. The only way it changes is deleting it and publishing again.
The best approach for sharing is using PowerBi Apps. You can pick the reports you want to share from a workspace and create an app with them. Also, you can create audiences to establish which people can see what report. The apps will have only one link for ever unless you remove the app. That way if a report changes inside the workspace or they make maintenance, or they change permissions... the link to the app is always the same.
I hope that helps