How to open shared dashboard with private email

[NLblabla]

We've created our first dashboard, which is meant to share with externals. I have a Power BI Pro license. I've tried to share it with my private mailaccount, which is added as a guest account in AAD. However, it just sometimes works. Sometimes when I open the dashboard button, it leads straight through portal.azure.com instead of the dashboard. Other times it works fine. But when I want to logon at app.powerbi.com with my guest account, I get an error because it is a private account. Is there an easy way for an external user to see all dashboard that are shared with the external user? And if they should only have access to view (not edit) the dashboards, is a paid version needed for that, or is my Pro license good enough?

[NLblabla]

Thank you for your answer @collinq, but why isn't a clear error thrown when you try to access it with insufficent license?

So if I understand it right:

External user already has Power BI pro => I can share the dashboard and he can logon and see it without any problems.

External user doesn't have Power BI pro on his business or private Microsoft account => We have to add an guest account in AAD, give that Power BI pro, and then he can logon with his own business address without any problems.

[collinq]

Hi @NLblabla ,

There are potential issues like caching and "how" you are signed in that make the messaging difficult to make clear (I can be signed into my browser with my Bing account, open my organization's Power BI service signed in with my EPM Strategy account and then open Power BI desktop with a third account to see a different account's reporting.)  

From your note:

"External user already has Power BI pro => I can share the dashboard and he can logon and see it without any problems."   Yes, assuming that the share has the right level of sharing AND that you are using the same ID (share it with the exact userid that they have their license assigned to).

"External user doesn't have Power BI pro on his business or private Microsoft account => We have to add an guest account in AAD, give that Power BI pro, and then he can logon with his own business address without any problems."   Yes, if you using the exact same userid - if you create a collin@mycompany.com in your AAD then Collin has to sign in with collin@mycompany.com and NOT with Collin's own collin@collinscompany.com     If you can create in your AAD a "collin@collinscompany.com" (which is not usually the case that you create AAD accounts but I am not an AAD expert) then Collin can use his own business' address.

[NLblabla]

Thanks. We are going to give it a try. I've succesfully shared it with my private mail account, but still hearing about trouble of other accounts we test it with. My private account also somehow got rights to view all users in AAD, which is definitely a problem if we make guest accounts for our customers. It is not giving good confidence yet in Power BI as the tool to share dashboards with our customers.

[collinq]

HI @NLblabla ,

The rule is that for a user, any user, internal or external, private or corporate has to have a PRO license to see the report.  The exception is if the report/workspace is Premium and the report in the workspace has been shared with the private email.  

I am wondering if it looks like it sometimes works because of a cached userid or something that is happening in the background that might be letting you in with the non-private userid?