Manage Permission and Giving Access to Power BI Reports and Dashboards

Introduction

Security management, permission and access control is crucial part of any kind of system. To view and analyze the report and dashboard user should have access to it. Without access users cannot view and see the reports and dashboards. This article will describe how to manage permission and give user direct access to the Power BI reports and dashboards. To manage permission and give access to reports and dashboards, you should be admin or owner of the workspace or report and dashboard. In this article, we will learn two ways to grant user direct access to the report.

Method 1– Direct Access From Manage Permission

Step 1: Share Report with Direct Access

Go to workspace containing reports or dashboards which you want to give access to the user. Click on share option of the report/dashboard as shown below.

Step 2: Manage Permission

After clicking on Share option you will get below dialog. Click on More options (…) of upper right of the sharing dialog box and then click on Manage permission.

You will get Manage permission pane as shown below. You can see list of people having access to this report or you can add new user having direct access to this report. To add new user, click on + icon.

Step 3: Provide user and Grant access

Then provide username or email address and Click on Grant Access. Here, you can add multiple users and share report at a time. You can select or unselect the sharing and build report option available on the dialog box as per your need.

Allow recipients to share this report: If you select this option while giving permission then user will get the option to share this report or dashboard to another user.

Allow recipients to build contents with the data associated with this report: This option allows user to build new report using data/dataset of this report or dashboard which you are sharing. You can select or unselect this options as per your user permission level or need.

Send and email notification: With this Send an email notification option selection, user gets email with link to view the report or dashboard. Below image shows sample email notification.

In this way, you can give access for the report to the users.

Method 2: Direct Access from Advance Option

On the other hand, you can go to Advance option and give direct access to the report. In the Method 1: Step 2, instead of Direct Access + click on Advanced option as illustrated below.

Or You can go to Manage permission directly from more options from your workspace as shown below.

In manage permission page with advanced option, you can see Links, Direct access user list, and pending list. Additionally, you can see related contents as like Dashboards, Workbooks, Datasets and Shared Views as depicted in the below picture.

You can do following things from Manage Permission page:

• View, manage, and create Links.
• View and manage who has Direct access as well as grant user direct access.
• You can View all Pending access requests to the report and dashboard and invitations as well.
• View and manage Related content.
• Additionally, you can apply Filters or Search for specific links or people.

Direct Access

For Direct access you can go to Direct access tab, you can see all the users who has direct access to this report and dashboard as well as you can give new user for direct access. To give new user direct access click on add user as shown below. Then user will get access to report.

You will get below dialog box. Provide username or email address then select, or deselect the permission for user and click on Grant Access. Additionally, you can write some additional message/note for user which is optional.

If you select the Send an email notification option, then user will get email with link to view the report.

Removing Direct Access and Sharing

We can remove the direct access and sharing option for existing users from Power BI Service permission management. If you want to remove access to the user, you can click on the … more options and then click on remove access.

Go to more options of the user which you want to remove and click on Remove access as illustrated.

To remove access, click on Remove access and you will get below window dialog then click on Remove access as depicted.

Similarly, to remove reshare option to the user, clicking on the … (more options) and click on Remove reshare.

Pending Tab

When user request for access to the report or dashboard it will be listed under Pending tab. From this pending tab you can Approve and Decline the access request of the user.

In my screenshot you can see that, I don’t have any Pending request in the list for this report in my workspace; however, you can select and approve or decline the request if you have any request.

Similarly, you can manage permission and access for dashboard. However, sharing dashboard via links is not available for now. So, for dashboard you cannot see the Links Tab in Manage permission window.

Conclusion

Overall, this article has described two ways to grant access to the Power BI reports and dashboards. Additionally, we have learned to remove access and re-share options to existing user .Hope this helps you to manage permission and access in Power BI.

Reference:

Microsoft-Share Power BI Reports and Dashboards