Forum Discussion
Individual authorization for refreshing a report
Hi Do57792
To allow your colleague to view and refresh only specific reports without giving access to the entire workspace, you have a couple of practical options. Power BI does not currently support folder-level permissions or fine-grained access within a single workspace. Instead, you can publish the required report to a separate workspace where your colleague is granted access (Viewer for view-only or Contributor for refresh capability). Alternatively, you can share the report directly from the Power BI Service using the "Share" feature this gives them access only to that report, not the full workspace.
However, for dataset refresh, they will need Build permission on the dataset and appropriate access to the underlying data source. A third option is to use a Power BI App, which allows you to bundle specific reports and securely share them with individual users, providing a curated experience without exposing other workspace content.
You're absolutely right — adding someone as a member to the entire workspace would give them access to all reports, which isn't suitable in your case. Fortunately, there are ways to grant access only to specific reports without giving access to the entire workspace.
I recommend:
Use the Share feature at the report level, without assigning workspace roles:
- Publish the report to a workspace (you as the owner).
- Go to the Power BI Service, open the report.
- Click on "Share" (top right).
- Enter your colleague’s email address and grant Read access only.
* You can choose whether they can reshare or build content on top. - This way, they can access only that specific report — not the full workspace.
For them to refresh the report manually, they must have build permissions and the dataset must be in the same workspace (or shared properly).