How to Publish Power BI Dashboard to Web

Sharing your Power BI report with the world is a great way to showcase data, provide public resources, or prove a point in a blog post. Instead of sending static screenshots, you can publish an interactive, live version directly to the web. This article will walk you through exactly how to use the "Publish to web" feature in Power BI, including the critical security considerations you need to understand first.

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First Things First: A Crucial Warning About "Publish to web"

Before we touch a single button, you must understand a critical fact about this feature: When you use "Publish to web," your report and the data within it become public.

This means anyone on the internet can find and view your report. It will be indexed by search engines. This is not a private, secure way to share information. Think of it like publishing a public blog post, not sending a private email.

Because of this, you should only use "Publish to web" for data that is genuinely public or has been fully anonymized. Never use this feature for:

• Confidential company financials (sales figures, profit margins)
• Customer personal identifiable information (PII)
• Proprietary sales or marketing data
• Employee data
• Any sensitive or internal company information

If you need to share a dashboard with sensitive data, skip ahead to the section on secure alternatives. For everyone else looking to share public data, let's proceed!

What You’ll Need

To follow this guide, you’ll need just two things:

1. A Microsoft Power BI Pro or Premium license.
2. A completed report that has already been published from Power BI Desktop to a workspace in the Power BI service (app.powerbi.com).

It's also important to note that Power BI administrators in your organization can disable the "Publish to web" feature for security reasons. If you don't see the option in the following steps, you may need to check with your IT department.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Publish a Power BI Report to the Web

The process is surprisingly straightforward. All the work happens within the Power BI Service (a web application), not Power BI Desktop (the software on your computer where you build reports).

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Step 1: Open Your Report in the Power BI Service

Start by logging in to app.powerbi.com. Navigate to the workspace that contains the report you want to publish and open it.

Step 2: Find the "Publish to web" Option

Once your report is open, look at the menu bar at the top of the screen. Click on File > Embed report > Publish to web (public).

Note: You may see other options like "Website or portal" or "SharePoint Online." These are different, more secure embedding methods that require viewers to sign in. For making a truly public report, be sure to select "Publish to web (public)."

Step 3: Acknowledge the Warning and Create the Embed Code

Power BI will now show you a prominent dialog box reminding you about the security implications we discussed earlier. Read it carefully. It serves as the final confirmation that you understand the data will be public.

If you're confident that your data is safe to share publicly, click the "Create embed code" button.

Step 4: Confirm and Publish

You’ll get one last warning. This is Microsoft's way of making absolutely sure you don't publish sensitive data by mistake. Click "Publish."

Step 5: Copy Your Link or Embed Code

Success! A new window will appear containing two options:

• A direct link: This is a public URL you can send to anyone. When they click it, they’ll see your interactive report on a clean webpage hosted by Microsoft.
• An HTML iframe code: This is a snippet of HTML (<iframe>) that you can paste into your website's source code to embed the report directly onto a page or in a blog post.

Copy whichever one you need. You now have a live, public-facing Power BI report!

How to Embed Your Power BI iFrame Code on a Website

If you copied the iframe code, the next step is to put it on your website. This process is the same as embedding other content, like a YouTube video. Simply edit the HTML of your webpage and paste the code where you want the report to appear.

Your code will look something like this:

<iframe title="Public Health Data Overview" width="800" height="600" src="https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=..." frameborder="0" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe>

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Tips for Embedding:

• Adjusting the Size: You can easily change the size of the embedded report by changing the width and height values in the code.
• Making it Responsive: To make your embed responsive so it looks good on mobile devices, you may need a little CSS. Many website builders (like WordPress or Squarespace) have "Embed" blocks that handle this for you automatically.

Managing Your Published Reports

Once you’ve published a report, you haven’t lost control of it. You can manage or delete your public embed codes at any time.

How to View All Your Embed Codes

1. In Power BI Service, click the Settings gear icon in the top right corner.
2. Select Manage embed codes.

This screen shows every public embed code you've created. Here, you can retrieve the code if you've lost it or delete it entirely.

How to Update a Published Report

When you update and re-publish the original report in your Power BI workspace, the public version is not instantly updated. Changes made in the Power BI service can take up to an hour to be reflected in your public embed. This includes changes to the visuals or updates from your data source refresh.

How to Delete a Public Report

If you need to take a public report offline permanently, go to the Manage embed codes screen. Find the report you want to remove, click the ellipsis (...) next to its name, and select Delete. This will break the public link and the embedded version, showing an error to anyone who tries to view it.

Sharing Securely: Alternatives to "Publish to Web"

What if your data is confidential? "Publish to web" is not for you. Luckily, Power BI offers several excellent ways to share reports securely with specific people.

1. Sharing with Individuals

The simplest method is the "Share" button. This lets you give specific coworkers view or edit access. They will need a Power BI Pro license and must log in to view the report. This is great for a small group of colleagues.

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2. Power BI Apps

For sharing a collection of dashboards and reports with a broader internal audience (like a whole department), you can bundle them into a Power BI App. You publish the app and grant access to specific user groups. This provides a clean, organized browsing experience for end-users, separate from the clutter of your workspaces.

3. Embed for Your Organization

The "Website or portal" option we skipped past earlier is Power BI’s secure embed feature. It generates an embed code pointing to a report that requires viewers to be logged into their organizational account. It works great for embedding dashboards into internal company portals or SharePoint sites where only employees have access.

4. Microsoft Teams Integration

You can also embed Power BI reports directly into your Microsoft Teams channels. This is an excellent way to bring data directly into your team's collaborative workflow, ensuring everyone is looking at the same information during discussions.

Final Thoughts

Publishing a Power BI report to the web is a powerful feature for sharing non-sensitive data, but its public nature requires careful consideration. By understanding when to use it and when to choose a secure alternative, you can effectively share your data insights with the right audience without compromising security.

Getting your data sources connected and your reports built in Power BI can often feel like half the battle. We've found that marketing and sales teams often spend hours just pulling data from different platforms like Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Shopify and stitching it together before they can even start analyzing it. To fix this, we created Graphed. It connects to all your data sources automatically and lets you build real-time, interactive dashboards just by asking questions in plain English, turning a day's worth of reporting work into a 30-second conversation.