Forum Discussion
difference between dashboard and report?
You create reports over your data model using the tables, columns and visualisation tools. You can't create a dashboard this way. Once you have a report, you can pin individual visualisations from a report into a dashboard - it is like a cockpit of individual visualisations and/or whole reports. Dashboards can have multiple tiles from different reports and different datamodels. When they click on a tile, the report opens.
I don't really get it. You can have tiles in reports too!
It may be that you are confusing a concept with an implemented feature. A Dashboard, in a manner of speaking, is akin to your Windows desktop. It's a placeholder for all your important icons which in turn are not applications but they are links to applications. A Report is to Power BI what an application is to Windows.
Coming to your question, just like programs use icons, Reports use tiles. It's not the use of tiles that determines a concept of Dashboard or a Report, but a Tile is only a visual instrument that helps both a Dashboard and a Report meet their objectives.
In short, Power BI lets you build Reports (like Windows provides an environment to build and lauch applications). It also provides a Dashboard on which different report developers can pin the links to their reports, much like an applications installs its icon on the Windows Desktop.
Hope that helps!