In addition to Power BI apps, Power BI Pro users can share individual dashboards and reports directly to users, security groups of users, and even guest users from outside the organization. For example, unlike a Power BI app built for the sales organization containing several dashboards and many reports, a single dashboard or report could be shared with two or three users in the customer service department. In this scenario, the few customer service department users may have limited or undefined reporting needs or the corporate BI team may not have a full Power BI app for their department prepared yet.

Recipients of shared dashboards and reports receive the same essential benefits of Power BI apps in terms of easy access as well as the latest updates and modifications to the content. In terms of user access, the Shared with Me menu is positioned immediately following the Apps menu in both the Power BI service and the Power BI mobile applications.

In the following screenshot, the user has accessed the main menu of the Power BI mobile via the navigation icon (≡) at the top left:

Power BI mobile main menu

Recipients of shared dashboards and reports can also add this content to their list of Favorites just like Power BI apps.

The Power BI service gives content owners a properties pane to define the recipients of the shared content and whether the recipients will also be allowed to share the content. This pane can be accessed via the Share icon at the top right of the given report or dashboard when these items have been opened or from the ACTIONS group of the app workspace.

The following image identifies the share icon for two dashboards of the Corporate Sales app workspace:

Share Action in Power BI service

The same sharing icon from the preceding image is also exposed in the ACTIONS workspace column for Power BI reports.

Excel workbooks published to the Power BI service cannot be shared directly. To share a published Excel workbook (indirectly), a dashboard can be shared containing a tile that was pinned from the Excel workbook. The user receiving the shared dashboard can access the workbook via the dashboard tile, just like accessing a Power BI report based on a pinned report visual.

Once the sharing action has been selected, a sharing properties page is launched to define the recipients who will receive access. In the following example, the CUSTOMER SERVICE TRENDS dashboard is being shared with Stacy Loeb and Brett Powell:

Share dashboard

As per the checkmark in the preceding image, the content owner has the option to allow recipients of the share to also share the dashboard themselves. This feature, referred to as resharing, expires one month after the share, if enabled originally.

Sharing dashboards and reports should only be generated from app workspaces and not from a user's private My Workspace. The app workspace allows the workspace members to manage both the content and its distribution, and thus eliminates a dependency on a single user.

Members with edit rights to the app workspace containing the shared dashboard or report can manage user access following the sharing of the content. For example, several days after the CUSTOMER SERVICE TRENDS dashboard was shared, it may be necessary to add or remove users from the share. Additionally, the ability of recipients to reshare the content can be revoked if this was enabled originally.

In the following image, a member of the Customer Service app workspace has again selected the Share action for the CUSTOMER SERVICE TRENDS dashboard but has now navigated to the Access pane:

Manage shared access

By clicking the ellipsis next to each individual user, the app workspace member (with edit rights) has the option to remove the user's access altogether or to toggle the user's access between Read only and Read and reshare.