What permission does a user need to publish and overwrite an existing report?

[Dimani]

Hi Power BI Service world,

A user is a member of a workspace.  He can edit and re-save an existing report when he does that in a web browser.  But when he downloads and edits the report using Power BI Desktop, he cannot re-publish it back to Power BI Service.  The message is something like a report with the same name already existed.   

Does he need additional permission in order for him to be able to overwrite an existing report when he publishes it from Power BI Desktop?  Or how can we find out what the issue is?  I do not think he is changing anything in the data model.

Most of the tables in the report use DirectQuery.  And when he downloads the report, he chooses the a copy with live connection option.

Thanks.

[v-sdhruv]

Hi @Dimani ,

Thanks for the update.  This will help other community members facing the same issue resolve it.

[Dimani · Accepted solution]

Hello @v-sdhruv and all those who had replied,

Thanks for your information and follow up.  We ended up granting the user read permission in the database; that I thought we did not have to do.  Now he can overwrite the existing report.  He has a license and is a memeber of the workspace.  However, that were not enough for him to overwrite the existing report even when he downloaded the report with the data.

Best regards,

[v-sdhruv]

Hi @Dimani ,
Just wanted to check if you got a chance to review the explainations  provided and whether that helped you resolve your query?

Thank You

[v-sdhruv]

Hi @Dimani ,

I hope the information provided above assists you in resolving the issue. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out.We would be  happy to help with any further assistance you may need.

Thank you @Poojara_D12  for your prompt response to the query.

[Poojara_D12]

Hi @Dimani 

In Power BI, workspace permissions control not only the ability to view or edit reports in the service but also the ability to publish or overwrite reports from Power BI Desktop. Even if a user can edit and re-save a report in the web browser, publishing from Desktop is treated differently: it requires “Member” or higher permissions in the workspace (Contributor or Admin), depending on the workspace type, and the report must either be renamed or explicitly overwritten. If the user receives an error like “a report with the same name already exists,” it usually indicates that they do not have permission to overwrite the existing report in the service. Another factor is that the report uses a live connection (DirectQuery) to a dataset, and for reports based on a shared dataset, publishing from Desktop requires either ownership of the dataset or proper permissions to connect to and overwrite reports tied to it. To troubleshoot, check the user’s role in the workspace under the workspace settings, ensure they have at least Contributor permissions, and confirm that the dataset the report connects to allows them to publish or modify reports using it. In many cases, using the “Save a copy” option in Desktop to create a new report in the service can bypass permission restrictions, but overwriting the original requires elevated permissions.

[Dimani]

Thanks tayloramy and GeraldGEmerick for your reply.

The user installed Power BI Desktop recently, so I think he is using, 2.146.1133.0 64-bit (August 2025), and he has a license.

The data source is SQL Server.

I thought I did not have the same issue because I could replace it before from Power BI Desktop.  Turned out, I had the same problem when I tried it a few mins ago.  And there was no option to overwrite it.  I repeated publishing it and did not see an option to overwrite the existing file.

After I posted my question, I looked into it further, and it appears it is by design it cannot be overwritten, see underline.  

"

Can't republish or replace an existing report

This problem can occur in the following scenarios.

• The Power BI tenant setting Block republish and disable package refresh is enabled. Work with your Power BI tenant administrator to disable this setting.

• If you see the error A report has already been published with this name, you're trying to publish a report that's connected via live connection on top of an original report that includes a semantic model. If you publish a live-connected report with the same name as the original, the semantic model is overwritten. This error is intended to prevent the loss of the semantic model. Members of a workspace can't replace an original shared report. If they try to do so, they're prompted to rename the file and then publish.

  You can download the original report (not the live-connected one). You should be able to publish that copy correctly to overwrite the original report. If you need a separate live-connected report, you can publish it with a different name.

"

[tayloramy]

Hi @Dimani, 

Just workspace contributor is required, and a pro license. Which if he can edit and save existing reports in the web he would have. 

WHat version of Power BI Desktop is being used? I encounted this problem a while ago when using an old version of Power BI desktop. 

Additionally, what are the data sources? Is one of the data sources SharePoint? We encounted a problem with semantic models automatically updating from sharepoint int he past, where this setting had to be disabled in the semantic model before it could be replaced. 
This only occured when the setting in the admin portal was flipped: 

Semantic model owners can choose to automatically update semantic models from files imported from OneDrive or SharePoint

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[GeraldGEmerick]

@Dimani There will always be a warning if a semantic model/report with the same name exists. But you can simply choose to proceed and publish anyway and it overwrites the copy in the Service.