Power BI dashboard vs Power BI app

Hi Anonymous 

A Dashboard...

Is built from parts of other Reports, "Tiles" which give access to the full Report

Can be used as a "table of contents" or "1,000 foot view" of the important parts of your Reports.

Is not paginated, but built as an infinite scroll.

Can fit well on a mobile device by default.

Can have "Tiles" of text etc. which when clicked will go to other web resources.

Cannot be shared via "Teams"

Is shared using the "classic" sharing mechanism, you have to enter each recipient individually.

Updates when the underlying Report Visual or data changes.

An App

Is built from multiple Reports and Dashboards within a single Workspace.

Can have a "Navigation" menu on the left which can use show different Report names in a specified order.

Copies the Report into the App, (but not the Dataset) so changes to the Report can be made without the App reflecting them. You need to Update the App for changes to show. This allows "staging" of changes.

Can be shared via "Teams"

Can be shared to AD security groups and distribution lists, and Microsoft 365 Groups.

If you've got one or two reports then a Dashboard may work well for you.

But if you have multiple reports, to be shared with multiple groups of users you really need an App. Apps also provide a simple change mechanism, App users won't see Report changes until you update the App, so you can work on the next version without users seeing the changes. But a Dashboard will update as soon as you have made a change to the Reports that feed it.

Put briefly, Dashboards are OK for small implementations, but Apps are more scalable, secure and manageable for larger solutions.

Hope this helps

Stuart