Forum Discussion

NaomiUys's avatar
NaomiUys
New Member
6 months ago
Solved

Workspace shell access denied & navigation bar missing for external Contributor

Hello Power BI community,

We are encountering an issue with the new Power BI External Access (cross-tenant) experience where external users are unable to access the workspace shell and do not see the Power BI navigation bar, despite having correct permissions.

 

Scenario

User is authenticated via the new external access flow using:
https://app.powerbi.com/home?ctid=<external-tenant-id>&experience=power-bi

The user is a Contributor on a workspace in the external tenant.

Direct access to reports and datasets works correctly.

 

However:

The Power BI navigation bar / workspace shell is missing in this tenant.

Expected behavior

As a Contributor, the external user should be able to access the workspace shell UI and see the navigation bar, consistent with behavior observed in other external tenants.

 

Actual behavior:

Workspace shell access is denied.

Navigation bar is suppressed.

User is forced into “My workspace” despite valid Contributor permissions.

 

Additional observations:

The same user and access method works as expected in other external tenants.

This appears to be tenant-specific, not user- or report-specific.

Focus Mode is not enabled.

This does not appear to be an embed or app context.

Permissions have been verified and re-applied.

 

Hypothesis:

This appears to be related to:

Tenant-level restrictions or legacy settings affecting external workspace shell access, or

Inconsistent feature rollout for the new External Access shell, causing the workspace container UI to be suppressed.

 

Request

Could you please help clarify:

Whether external users are expected to have access to the workspace shell and navigation bar when granted Contributor permissions in a cross-tenant scenario

If there are known tenant-level settings, limitations, or rollout dependencies that could suppress the workspace shell UI for external users

Whether this behavior aligns with the intended design of the new External Access experience, or if additional configuration is required to enable the full navigation shell

 

 

Thank you for your assistance,

Need Help

4 Replies

  • GilbertQ's avatar
    GilbertQ
    Super User
    6 months ago

    Hi NaomiUys 

     

    Can you make sure you have the following admin setting configured below which should allow you users to then see their navigation bar? 

     

     

  • v-kpoloju-msft's avatar
    v-kpoloju-msft
    Community Support
    6 months ago

    Hi NaomiUys,

    Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum. Also, thanks to GilbertQ, GeraldGEmerick,  for those inputs on this thread.

    Has your issue been resolved? If the response provided by the community member GilbertQ, GeraldGEmerick,  addressed your query, could you please confirm? It helps us ensure that the solutions provided are effective and beneficial for everyone.

    Hope this helps clarify things and let me know what you find after giving these steps a try happy to help you investigate this further.

    Thank you for using the Microsoft Community Forum.

    • v-kpoloju-msft's avatar
      v-kpoloju-msft
      Community Support
      6 months ago

      Hi NaomiUys,

      Just wanted to follow up. If the shared guidance worked for you, that’s wonderful hopefully it also helps others looking for similar answers. If there’s anything else you'd like to explore or clarify, don’t hesitate to reach out.

      Thank you.