Help, can we publish a PBI report and share with others who doesn't have a Pro License

[reddy421]

Our Company has around 500 stores and each store has a manger who would like to see some basic data like Electicity bill , Telephone bill and all those.

I wanted to create a PBI report and share with them( I have a Pro License) .

Is there a way the store managers can see the report without them having a PBI Pro license?

What is the best way to achieve this?

Also I wanted to apply row level security to the report so that the store manager can see only his store but not all the other stores.

[djurecicK2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @reddy421 ,

 For a small number of users, usually the best thing to do is have each report creator and consumer get a Power BI Pro license. There are ways for report consumers to not need a Power BI Pro license, but this requires a Fabric capacity subscription which is much more expensive.

[suparnababu8 · Accepted solution]

Hi @reddy421 

Yes you can grant the access subject to following conditions.

• You store manager has O365subscription(your organisation email id) 
• Your Power BI tenet under premium capcity.
• Your workspace should be premium workspace.
• You need to have PRO license.

If you have above all points. The follow below steps.

Step -1 In PBI workspace go to your report click on (...) three dots--> Manage Permissions as shown in below

step2 Click  on Add link as shown in below pic.

Step-3 the add user email ids(your store manager email ids) as shown in below pic.

---

Then click on send(1), They'll recive PBI url automatically...in to their email inboxes..

Copy the link(2). and share this link with them . in this way also they are able to access the report.

If i click on copy link  option it'll show linke below

Make sure that correct RLS should be applied.

Let me know if it works

[anmolmalviya05 · Accepted solution]

To achieve your goals of sharing a Power BI report with store managers without them needing a Pro license and applying Row-Level Security (RLS) so that each manager sees only their store's data, here are some approaches:

1. Sharing Without a Power BI Pro License

Unfortunately, Power BI Pro is required for sharing reports. If the store managers do not have Pro licenses, they will not be able to view the shared reports unless:

Power BI Premium Per User (PPU): If you have Power BI Premium capacities in your organization, you can publish the report in a Premium workspace. Users who do not have a Pro license can still view the reports when shared with them. Power BI Premium allows for wider sharing without requiring each user to have a Pro license.

Public Embedding (not secure): You can publish the report to the web as a public link, but this is not recommended for confidential data, as anyone with the link can access the report. This would expose sensitive information and would not allow for row-level security.

Embedding in a Website or App (Secure): If your organization uses a custom portal or intranet, you can securely embed Power BI reports within those environments. This option requires either Power BI Embedded or Power BI Premium licensing. You can also integrate RLS to make sure each manager sees only their store’s data.

Based on your scenario, here’s the recommended path:

• Upgrade to Power BI Premium/Microsoft Fabric (if available in your organization): This will allow you to share reports with all store managers without requiring each of them to have a Pro license. You'll also be able to scale and handle a larger volume of users.

• Apply Row-Level Security (RLS) to ensure data security. Each store manager will see only their store’s bills (electricity, telephone, etc.).

• Consider Embedding Power BI Reports securely within your company portal (if applicable). Power BI Embedded allows you to control access, and you can use RLS to restrict data visibility.

If Power BI Premium isn’t an option, then you may need to assign Pro licenses to the store managers or consider different ways to distribute the report, such as exporting it to PDF or Excel (though this would lose interactivity and security benefits).

[suparnababu8 · Accepted solution]

Hi @reddy421 

Yes you can grant the access subject to following conditions.

• You store manager has O365subscription(your organisation email id) 
• Your Power BI tenet under premium capcity.
• Your workspace should be premium workspace.
• You need to have PRO license.

If you have above all points. The follow below steps.

Step -1 In PBI workspace go to your report click on (...) three dots--> Manage Permissions as shown in below

step2 Click  on Add link as shown in below pic.

Step-3 the add user email ids(your store manager email ids) as shown in below pic.

---

Then click on send(1), They'll recive PBI url automatically...in to their email inboxes..

Copy the link(2). and share this link with them . in this way also they are able to access the report.

If i click on copy link  option it'll show linke below

Make sure that correct RLS should be applied.

Let me know if it works

[pallavi_r]

Hi @reddy421 ,

We can share the Power BI report either when i) Power BI report is residing in Premium Capacity/FSKU or ii) the user has Power BI license pro to view the report.

If above 2 are not there, then next option is to embed a report with RLS. Please check this below blog from Microsoft.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/embedded/cloud-rls

Thanks,

Pallavi

[djurecicK2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @reddy421 ,

 For a small number of users, usually the best thing to do is have each report creator and consumer get a Power BI Pro license. There are ways for report consumers to not need a Power BI Pro license, but this requires a Fabric capacity subscription which is much more expensive.