Render PowerBI report(PBIX) inside a visual

[Gokul_PBI]

Hi Everyone,

I know we can embed paginated reports(RDL) inside powerbi report using paginated report visual, Can we do exactly same with another powerbi report(pbix)?

I tried even html custom visual but that is rendering only static web pages but not existing powerbi report and getting forbidden error or connection refused

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @Gokul_PBI , hope you are doing great. May we know if your issue is solved or if you are still experiencing difficulties. Please share the details as it will help the community, especially others with similar issues.

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @Gokul_PBI , Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

@ibarrau  and @R1k91  are correct on the technical limitation, Power BI simply does not allow one secured PBIX to be rendered inside another PBIX visual. Every visual runs in a sandboxed frame with no permission to load another authenticated frame, which is why your HTML and custom visual attempts either open new windows or fail with forbidden errors. That behavior isn’t a bug, it’s how the service enforces token isolation and prevents cross-report impersonation.

@KarinSzilagyi ’s suggestion is relevant in your specific case because Apps + Audiences are the only native feature that can give you role specific navigation within a single workspace. You can hide report creation from consumers while still allowing SMEs to build reports and you can show finance only content to finance users without duplicating workspaces. Apps also support your branding requirements, which PowerApps currently can’t do. It’s the only supported way to deliver the segmented experience you’re trying to manually rebuild inside a PBIX.

So, the core issue isn’t your design idea; it’s that the platform won’t load secured reports inside report visuals and no workaround can bypass that while keeping RLS intact. The closest you can get to the UX you want is an Organizational App that acts as your navigation shell, combined with cross report navigation to make the transitions feel smooth. It won’t embed reports inside one canvas but it will give you the role based, branded, workspace wide experience you actually need.

Apps in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Thank you @R1k91 , @KarinSzilagyi and @ibarrau  for your valuable responses.

[KarinSzilagyi]

Hi @Gokul_PBI, could you provide some additional information on why you're trying to display a report inside a report? Depending on what exactly you're trying to achieve, there are different options that might work for your use case.

Unfortunately, you can't direclty embed a Power BI Report inside a Power BI Report Page through custom visuals.

Different options you could consider though are:

• Navigation buttons or links to navigate from one Report to another. You can link directly to specific report pages and pass filters through the URL if needed.
• Cross-report drillthrough. You can enable drillthrough filters on the target page, and users can right-click and follow through with the same filter context. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/create-reports/desktop-drillthrough 
  
• You can publish your reports through a Power BI App or, if your tenant supports it, an Org App. Both options give you a cleaner navigation structure without having to merge the reports themselves.
  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/consumer/end-user-apps 
  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/consumer/org-app-items/org-app-items 

I hope any of these options help with what you're trying to achieve!

Did this answer your question? If so, please consider marking it as the ‘Accepted Solution’ - it helps others with the same issue find the answer more easily.

[Gokul_PBI]

Thanks @KarinSzilagyi  for your detailed response,

Here’s the scenario we are trying to address, which stems from some limitations we’ve encountered with PowerApps:

I need to provide access to a workspace for a group of users, where each user plays a different role within that group.

PowerApps initially seemed like the perfect solution, but there are certain limitations. For example:

• I cannot customize the left-side menu based on user profiles.
  • A user with an SME role should see all reports in the workspace and also have a link to create new reports.
  • A report consumer should only see the list of reports, without the option to create new ones.
  • A finance team member should only see finance-related reports within the same workspace.
• I also want to apply a custom RGB theme color, which PowerApps does not currently support.
• There are other customizations I’d like to implement, but the flexibility to achieve them in PowerApps is limited.

As a result, I started exploring the report option, where I aim to build a report that mimics an app-like interface. The idea is:

• When I click a report link in one visual, the corresponding report should render on the right side within the same report.
• When I click “New Report,” I should see that option appear on the right as well.

Note: I am going to try org apps next week and not sure if that solve our problem.

[R1k91 · Accepted solution]

IMHO you should keep it easy with out of the box Power BI App + Audiences + Workspace Level Security

Create a power bi app with all the reports inside and 2 audiences:
- audience 1: see all reports

- audience 2: see only finance report 

the app can have  RGB theme color and a logo

Workspace access

- add the SME users as contributor role in workspace so they can create reports and add them to the workspace (and to the app if you want)

- add the SME users to the audience 1 so they navigate the app and see all the reports

- add report consumers to the audience 1 and not to the workspace. they won't be able to create new reports just navigate what is exposed by the audience 1 

- add finance consumers to the audience 2 and not to the workspace. they won't be able to create new reports just navigate what is exposed by the audience 2

[KarinSzilagyi]

Ok, that's a tricky one... I'm honestly not sure if it will work, but one thing you could try is:

1) Get the information regarding which reports and pages you have in your workspace via the Rest API: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi/reports and create a table in your dataset that includes an overview of all Reports, Pages and the URLs to get to those reports/pages. Include this table in the datasets of all reports you're trying to display.

2) Set up RLS on the Report/URL Table to filter who can see which reports (e.g. via by following a specific naming schema to pre-categorize the reports).

3) Create a navigation panel through the HTML Content (or HTML Content Lite) visual. Render each Report/Page from your URL-table as a button. Since you can use custom CSS in the HTML Content Visual, you can style this navigation however you want dynamically.  

I did a quick test and in theory it works, but the s....ad part is, that it will always open each navigation click in a new window. I don't believe there's a way to force it to open the report in the same window.

Alternatively I also tried pasting the iframe of each report into a table and displaying that. If you set your report to "Publish to Web (public)" this actually works and you get a fully clickable report inside the HTML Content visual, but I doubt that you would like to expose the underlying Semantic Models like that....

[Gokul_PBI]

@KarinSzilagyi

You’re absolutely spot on—thank you so much for your answer!

I tried the same approach, but the challenge is rendering it in a visual, which isn’t working as expected. Additionally, we have RLS applied to every report, so Publish to Web (public) may not be a viable option for us.

I’m planning to try using organizational apps, though I’m not entirely sure if that will resolve the issue.

[R1k91]

Publish to web is never a solution 😊

[ibarrau]

Hi. That's not possible. You can't embed a power bi report inside another power bi report. If you want to tell us more about the requirement we could help you find an approach for the solution. 

I hope that helps