difference between dashboard and report?

[MP_123]

hi

can someone help me understand what's the difference between dashboard and report?

thank you!

[Oxana1]

Reports are based on the same data set, while dashboards may contain charts that are based on different data sets (that's why we have an ability to pin them onto one dash).

[MattAllington · Accepted solution]

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. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys. This helped

[asocorro]

One way in which I like to explain the difference is that a company may have reports from different departments, say HR, Sales, and Manufacturing.  And each may have their own dashboards.  However, the CEO may be interested in a high-level summary of all departments.   You can then create a company dashboard that has tiles with information from each of the three reports/departments.

[andrerochaslc]

Thks now its got clearly to me.

[eltonsenne]

Hi Adolfo,

Great explanation! However I stil have a doubt:

Is the Dashboard static or dinamic!? I mean . . . will I be able to see the automatic update data in the Dashboard as in the Reports?

A example. I have 3 Reports, one for each Power Plant and they are updated every 5min with a lot of production information. The CEO wants to see just the Energy Generation Graph for the 3 plants.

What should I do? Just pin the EGG from the reports or create a new Report to consolitade them?

Thanks in advance

Elton Senne

[Antb71182]

The Dashboard will use the same data sets as the reports, so if you have them set to refresh periodically both the report views and the dashboard views will show a representation of that new data.  With this in mind, you will be better off pinning the 3 site reports to a dashboard.

Hope that helps!

[Madhurima]

Is there a way to periodically refresh the report? I can see that when dataset is refreshed, dashboard gets updated with latest data. But the report view does not update unless manually refreshed.

[eltonsenne]

Helps a lot.

Thank you very much.

[gvg]

I don't really get it. You can have tiles in reports too!

[edwinanand]

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!