Enable and/or optimize Power BI Global Search

[kmspsu93]

Greetings,

This is for https://app.powerbi.com/

I have been unsuccessful at finding a definitive blog, knowledge article or forum post that can answer how to optimize Power BI Global Search.  Not even just optimize, how I can get a report to show up in the results.  At present, I have reports with fairly unique naming that will not show up in the Global Search results.  Tags do not help.  Domains do not help , maybe not an intended use for Domains, but should be one. i.e. give me all the reports in a particular Domain.

Anyway...if there is a checkbox or setting or anything that can be done to enable a report to show up in Global Search results...I would appreciate some guidance.  We have very few reports published so it is not getting lost in the results.  I could name a report "Gandalf", and there is no guarantee it will show up.  Other stuff does...no ryhme or reason.  Waiting for Search "crawl" to occur?  Nope!  Reports first published years ago do not show up.

Thank you.

[v-pnaroju-msft]

Hi kmspsu93,

We are following up to check whether you have raised the support ticket. If you have already done so, we kindly request you to share your feedback on the issue raised.
If a solution has been provided, we would appreciate it if you could share it with the community and mark it as the accepted solution. This will help others facing similar challenges and benefit the broader community.

Thank you.

[v-pnaroju-msft]

Hi kmspsu93,

We are following up to check whether you have raised the support ticket. If you have already done so, we kindly request you to share your feedback on the issue raised.
If a solution has been provided, we would appreciate it if you could share it with the community and mark it as the accepted solution. This will help others facing similar challenges and benefit the broader community.

Thank you.

[v-pnaroju-msft]

Hi kmspsu93,

We are following up to check whether you have raised the support ticket. If you have already done so, we kindly request you to share your feedback on the issue raised.
If a solution has been provided, we would appreciate it if you could share it with the community and mark it as the accepted solution. This will help others facing similar challenges and benefit the broader community.
Thank you.

[v-pnaroju-msft]

Hi kmspsu93,

Thank you for the update and the information shared with the community. We kindly request that you share the solution with the community, as it will assist others encountering similar challenges and ultimately benefit the broader community.

Thank you.

[v-pnaroju-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi kmspsu93,

We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.

As the issue remains unresolved, we kindly request you to raise a support ticket with Microsoft using the link provided below. The support team will be able to offer specific insights related to your account and suggest appropriate resolutions.
Microsoft Fabric Support and Status | Microsoft Fabric

If you find our response helpful, we request you to mark it as the accepted solution and consider giving kudos. This will help other community members who may have similar queries.

Thank you.

[kmspsu93]

Thank you for the response.  I will consider going to MSFT Support.  An added note here for others is that https://m365.cloud.microsoft/ does return results for the content we have and is actually a good alternative to Power BI Global Search, which for us has signficant gaps in search results.

Not marking posts as Accepted as Solution as nothing provided provided insight into how Power BI Global Search works (other than the on/off switch in tenant settings) or what dependent settings (if any) need to be made in Power BI to enable content to be displayed in search results.  If I get a resolution from support, I will post it here and then mark that as accepted solution.

[v-pnaroju-msft]

Thank you, @lbendlin ,for your response.

Hi @kmspsu93,

We sincerely appreciate your inquiry through the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum.

As per my understanding, Power BI Global Search primarily retrieves results based on report names, dataset titles, dashboard names, workspace names, and app names. It does not search within report descriptions, tags, domain values, or report content such as visuals or fields.

To enhance the discoverability of your reports through Global Search, kindly follow the best practices mentioned below:

1. Use clear and unique report titles; avoid using special characters.

2. Store reports in shared or premium workspaces, rather than personal workspaces.

3. Ensure that users have at least Viewer access to the report or workspace.

4. Avoid relying on tags or domain values, as these currently do not influence search results.

Additionally, you may refer to the following link for further details:

Search and find your content using global search - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

If you find our response helpful, we kindly request you to mark it as the accepted solution and consider giving it kudos. This will help other community members who may have similar queries.

Thank you.

[kmspsu93]

Thanks for the response.  However, not sure any of the 4 best practices have any influence on results.

1. Use clear and unique report titles; avoid using special characters.

   • As an example of I have a report simply named ETL Data.  It will not return in results.  Another example is a report with the acronym LOS in the name, will not return.  Of the reports that do show up in results, I do see reports with special charachters in the Global Search results.

2. Store reports in shared or premium workspaces, rather than personal workspaces.

   • All content I expect to see in results are from is non-personal Workspaces.  If I have 30 reports in the same Workspace some of them show up in results, some do not.  No pattern or factor of where the report is stored I can see differentiates them

3. Ensure that users have at least Viewer access to the report or workspace.

   • I am an Admin on every Workspace at my company and receive incomplete complete results. 

4. Avoid relying on tags or domain values, as these currently do not influence search results.

   • Got it, however tags and domain values should influence.  Especially tagging.  Why even tag if it does not help you find it?

At present it just seems the best thing to do is turn it off.

Thank you for your reply though.

[kmspsu93]

Hmmm...it's on.  It returns results, just not all results....with no way to determine why some reports and not others.  If it is buggy then I will turn it off.  Seemed like it could be useful...your reply makes me wonder if I should just turn it off.  Thanks for the suggestion to check the tenant settings.

[lbendlin]

wow, someone is actually using that feature?  🙂  Talk to your tenant admin and have them check the tenant settings for this, as it is possible that they blocked it.