Setting up accounts for external clients to view dashboards

[floridapaceman]

Hi there,

Does PBI offer a service where I, as the dashboard creater, require external clients to login (username/password) to view reports that are specific to that login?  If it does, how do I go about setting up their accounts?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[GilbertQ]

Hi there, are you referring to Row Level Security based on their login?

Or if you are able to Share a dashboard with external users, and they can then log in and view the dashboards?

[floridapaceman]

Thanks for the response.  This might be a very simple question but to try explain:

I have a report that I want the client to see.  I do, however, want to be able to track how many times they accessed it, etc...

If I share the report with them, are they required to sign-up with PowerBI -- which then makes me able to track their activity? ( and have some level of understanding on who all is looking at my dashboard)

[GilbertQ]

Hi there, ok that makes sense, then from my understanding in order to track it, it will need to be done via the Azure Audit Logs, and I do recall that it will only happen on your Azure logins (I stand to be corrected). So by creating logins, then yes that would work. But remember then that each user would require a Pro License from 01 June 2017

[floridapaceman]

Thank you.

I am very new to PBI so just to confirm:

1) If I share a report with an external client, they are required to set-up an account to view it?

2) By doing so, their activity within the report will be 'viewable'

3) I will need Azure Audit Logs to get this information

4) How does the Admin Portal play a role in this? Can only the admins initiate this process? (step 3).

[GilbertQ · Accepted solution]

Hi @floridapaceman

Please see my answers below

1) You can actually share dashboards with external email addresses which are not in your domain. (Not 100% sure if you can see this in the Azure Audit Logs)

2) Yes you would be able to get the data to show which users have viewed the dashboards, as well as the reports.

3) Yes the Azure Audit logs is where all the activity information is stored.

4) You have to configure the Azure Audit logs via the Admin Portal, which then re-directs to the Office 365 Portal. And yes only Admins in both Power BI and Office 365 can enable this.