How to Share Power BI Report

You've spent hours connecting data sources, shaping models, and crafting the perfect visuals in Power BI. Now comes the most important part: getting that report into the hands of your team, clients, or stakeholders. But sharing in Power BI isn't a one-size-fits-all process. This guide provides a clear walkthrough of the different ways you can share your reports, so you can choose the right method for any situation.

Before You Share: A Quick Checklist

Before you can share a report, there are two preliminary steps you must take. Getting these done first will save you a lot of headaches later.

• License Requirements: Sharing is a feature of the Power BI service, not Power BI Desktop. Generally, to share a report and for others to view it, both you and your recipients will need a Power BI Pro or a Premium Per User (PPU) license. The main exception is if your report is hosted in a Power BI Premium capacity, which allows users with free licenses to view content.
• Publish Your Report: You can only share reports that live in the Power BI service (the online version of Power BI). After building your report in Power BI Desktop, you need to publish it. Just click the "Publish" button on the Home tab and choose a workspace to publish it to.

With those two steps handled, you're ready to start sharing.

Method 1: Sharing Reports Directly with Links

The most common and straightforward way to share a report is by sending a direct link to specific people. This method gives you granular control over who sees your data and what they can do with it.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Navigate to the report you want to share in your Power BI workspace.
2. At the top of the report, you'll see a Share button. Click it.
3. In the "Send link" dialog box, you can enter the names or email addresses of the people you want to share with. Power BI integrates with your organization's directory, making it easy to find colleagues.
4. Choose the permissions for your recipients:
5. By default, Power BI will send an email notification to your recipients with a link to the report. You can customize the message or uncheck this option if you prefer to copy the link and send it yourself.
6. Click "Send." Your recipients can now access the report using the link.

Best For:

This method is ideal for sharing reports with a defined group of people, like your internal team, your manager, or specific project stakeholders. It's secure, controlled, and provides individual-level access management.

Things to Keep in Mind:

As mentioned, everyone involved typically needs a Pro or PPU license. This is the main financial and logistical hurdle. Users will need to be signed in to their Power BI account to view the link you send.

Method 2: Publish to Web for Public Sharing

Sometimes you want to share your data with a wide audience, perhaps on a public blog post or website. The "Publish to web" feature generates a public link and embed code that anyone can access without needing to sign in or have a Power BI license.

How to Create a Public Embed Code

1. In the Power BI service, open the report you want to make public.
2. Go to File > Embed report > Publish to web (public).
3. You will be shown a warning confirmation prompt. Read it carefully. It's warning you that your report will become publicly visible.
4. Once you confirm, Power BI will generate a link you can share directly and an HTML <iframe> code that you can paste into your website's editor to embed the report visually.

Best For:

This is perfect for data journalists, non-profits, or businesses wanting to showcase public data. For example, a city government could embed a report of public works projects, or a real estate agent could embed local market trends on their blog.

⚠️ A Critical Security Warning

You should never use "Publish to web" for confidential or proprietary data. Once you publish a report to the web, there is no authentication. Anyone with the link can view your report and its data. There is no row-level security or way to control who sees it. It is, for all intents and purposes, part of the public domain. Your Power BI admin may have this feature disabled for safety reasons.

Method 3: Securely Embedding Reports

"Publish to web" is for public use, but what if you want to embed a report on an internal site, like a SharePoint page or a private company portal? For that, Power BI offers secure embed options that respect all your existing permissions.

Embedding in SharePoint Online

Microsoft has made embedding Power BI reports into SharePoint Online incredibly simple.

1. With your report open in the Power BI service, go to File > Embed report > SharePoint Online.
2. This generates a special URL. Copy this link.
3. Go to your SharePoint page and add a new "Power BI" web part.
4. Paste the link you copied from Power BI into the web part's settings.

The report will now appear seamlessly on the page. Only users who already have permission to view the report in Power BI will be able to see it here. Others will see a message prompting them to request access.

Using "Embed" for Internal Websites or Portals

Similar to the SharePoint option, you can also generate a generic iframe code for other secure situations. Go to File > Embed report > Website or portal. This gives you an <iframe> code you can use on any internal web page that requires users to be logged in.

Best For:

Placing reports in a central, secure hub that your team already uses. This adds context to the data, placing it right alongside project updates, internal wikis, or team announcements.

Method 4: Packaging Content with Power BI Apps

If you have a collection of related reports and dashboards that you want to distribute to a broad audience within your organization, sharing them one by one is inefficient. A Power BI App solves this problem by bundling them together into a professional, easy-to-navigate package.

Think of an App as a curated content pack for a specific department or role. You might have a "Sales Analytics App" containing reports on pipeline, performance, and quotas, or a "Marketing Performance App" with reports on campaign ROI, website traffic, and lead generation.

How to Create and Publish an App

1. Organize all the reports, dashboards, and datasets you want to include into a single Power BI workspace.
2. Within that workspace, click the Create app button in the top-right corner.
3. In the setup screen, you will give your app a name, description, and color theme.
4. Under the Content tab, you select which reports and dashboards from the workspace to include in the app.
5. Under the Audience tab, you set permissions, defining who has access to the app.
6. Click Publish app. Users can then find and install your app from the "Apps" section of their Power BI service or via a direct link you provide.

Best For:

Standardizing reporting for entire departments or user groups. It provides a clean, controlled user experience, as consumers of the app can't modify the original reports, which protects them from accidental changes.

Method 5: Exporting as a Static File (PDF, PowerPoint, PNG)

Finally, there's the classic low-tech approach: exporting your report as a static file. This is useful when your recipients don't have or don't need interactive access.

How to Export

While viewing a report, go to Export and choose your desired format:

• PDF: Creates a static, multi-page document of your report. Best for printing or emailing a snapshot.
• PowerPoint: This is a powerful feature that embeds each report page as a high-resolution, static image on its own PowerPoint slide and includes a link back to the live report in Power BI, if viewer permissions allow. This is great for preparing presentations.
• Image File (via Analyze > Export data): If you only need a single visual, you can export it as a PNG file directly from that visual's menu.

You can also set up email subscriptions for a report, which will automatically email a PDF or PowerPoint snapshot to a list of recipients on a regular schedule (e.g., every Monday at 9 AM).

Best For:

Presentations, board reports, and situations where interactivity isn't needed. Also great for archiving point-in-time performance or sharing with stakeholders outside your organization who don't have Power BI access.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the right way to share your Power BI report comes down to understanding your audience, their technical capabilities, and your data security requirements. Whether you're sending a direct link to a teammate, embedding a report in your company portal, or publishing a static PDF for a board meeting, Power BI provides a method to fit the need.

While Power BI is an incredibly powerful tool, managing workspaces, user licenses, and sharing permissions can sometimes feel like a full-time job. With all the valuable data scattered across marketing and sales platforms, we believe building and sharing reports shouldn't be so complicated. That’s why we built Graphed to be the easiest way to connect your data sources – like Salesforce, Shopify, and Google Analytics – and build real-time, interactive dashboards using simple language. Sharing is as easy as sending a secure link, and your whole team can get the answers they need without ever needing a Power BI license.