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Benjamin_500
Advocate I
Advocate I

Dashboard Vs Report

Will someone please explain what the differance is between a Dashboard and a Report.
I cant see any other than, everything i build in BI Desktop publishes as a report.

Which then seems to just limit the sharing options?

 

Its the most pointless usless headache i have had in learning PowerBi. Every video i watch says "build a dashboard in 5mins" or whatever actually builds a report.

 

I dont get why there is this odd split that has no real differance for an end user, its driving me nuts and no where can i find an explination as to why this even exists.

 

Can someone tell me how i change the report i have built to be a dashboard so that i can then share it?

 

BI knowledge base said to share a report, share the link, but of all the 10 people i shared it with, none can open the link, it takes them to their own workspace and is not an option under reports.

 

confused to hell!

Thanks,

Ben

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

ah ok!  and yes i have those books already.

 

Ok when you publish to the Power BI service, it creates 2 objects a dataset and a report.   Even though technically what you have already created is a dashboard you need to pin that 'report' aka dashboard into a dashboard.

 

What you need to do is in the Power BI service, manually create a dashboard in the dashsboard workspace by clicking the + where it says dashboard.  Basically what you doing it creating a shell to dump your 'report' into.    Then open your report, at the top of the screen you should see pin live dashboard, pin it to the dashboard you just created.

 

You might want think about creating a group workspace for the group you created, in other words the default will be your work space.  Create a group workspace to share your content with the group that are going to consume the dashboard.  You can do that under my work space at the top.  Then add all the users into that, unless there is already an defined group in your office 365 domain  that you can add it to.  There is a way of linking those groups to power bi i think.

 

hope that makes sense.





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12 REPLIES 12
vanessafvg
Super User
Super User

A dashboard is more of a high level view of something specific that you want to monitor ;

1. gives you a high level view of what it is you are monitoring

2. alerts you to issues that might be happening

3. gives you information  in order to action  something

 

 Reports, as in Standard type reporting  tends to be more detailed in nature and more for day to day operational type activities.  You can have a dashboard that drills down into a detailed report, however it depends.

 

Power BI is not necessarily the right solution for all reporting, it really just depends on what your requirements are.





If I took the time to answer your question and I came up with a solution, please mark my post as a solution and /or give kudos freely for the effort 🙂 Thank you!

Proud to be a Super User!




Thanks, my requirement is to share some charts with 10-50 other users. I seem to be struggling to do this.
Tableau made this a lot simpler to manage..

i guess its just about understanding the differences between power bi and tableau.   

 

You can create a dashboard in a power bi desktop file and then publish  that to the power bi service which you can then share with your users.

 

What is it that you are struggling with exactly, its very easy to share power bi but you just need to know where to do it.

 

Things to consider

1. How often does the data need to be refresh

2. are all these users on your office 365 domain

3. how will you update your data.

4. Are you set up on the Power BI service yet?

 

etc





If I took the time to answer your question and I came up with a solution, please mark my post as a solution and /or give kudos freely for the effort 🙂 Thank you!

Proud to be a Super User!




I cant workout how, in PowerBi Desktop to make a Dashboard over a Report?
I admit I am very new to this, where as Tableu I get easily. There are obviously a few issues, like no duel axis for line charts etc.. but i guess they will come.

Right now, I really cant tell the differance between a DB and a Report and I think i need to make a DB so that i can publish it as a DB and share that with my team? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Did you say you have built dashboards in tableau before, what is the difference?  

 

Lets start like this,

 

1. what is your objective  ie. your functional requirement which means, what story are you trying to tell with the data?

2. What do you users need to see in order for to be valuable to them, do they all  have the same requirement.  

3. Is it year / quarter / month view?  Or is it a daily view?  

 

 

 

by the sounds of it if you are showing graphs it probably a dashboard.  To get a better idea  of what a dashboard is and how to make it a great dashboard 

read this  http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/misc/WhyMostDashboardsFail.pdf

 

 





If I took the time to answer your question and I came up with a solution, please mark my post as a solution and /or give kudos freely for the effort 🙂 Thank you!

Proud to be a Super User!




ok, I think we are slightly out of sync, I know the definition and differance between a Dash and Report, I am a BI.
What I do not understand is PowerBi`s definition between a Dashboard and a Report.

I have made, what is, by definition a Dashboard,

Dash.PNG

 

However, PowerBi sees this as a report, when i publish this to a workspace, its housese this under the heading of Report, not Dashboard. 

 menu.PNG

 

Why I cant workout, is how to tell PowerBi that the Dashboard I have made, is a Dashboard and not a Report and to stop treating it as such.

This is where Tableau was better, you simply said "I want to make a Dashboard" or "I want to tell a story", which was more like a report delivery.

Does that make more sense.  

Thanks for the link, ill read it, to share on that theme, take a look at two books by Stephen Few, "Information Dashboard Design" and "Show Me the Numbers" both are excellent.

ah ok!  and yes i have those books already.

 

Ok when you publish to the Power BI service, it creates 2 objects a dataset and a report.   Even though technically what you have already created is a dashboard you need to pin that 'report' aka dashboard into a dashboard.

 

What you need to do is in the Power BI service, manually create a dashboard in the dashsboard workspace by clicking the + where it says dashboard.  Basically what you doing it creating a shell to dump your 'report' into.    Then open your report, at the top of the screen you should see pin live dashboard, pin it to the dashboard you just created.

 

You might want think about creating a group workspace for the group you created, in other words the default will be your work space.  Create a group workspace to share your content with the group that are going to consume the dashboard.  You can do that under my work space at the top.  Then add all the users into that, unless there is already an defined group in your office 365 domain  that you can add it to.  There is a way of linking those groups to power bi i think.

 

hope that makes sense.





If I took the time to answer your question and I came up with a solution, please mark my post as a solution and /or give kudos freely for the effort 🙂 Thank you!

Proud to be a Super User!




@vanessafvg  There is no + sign next to Dashboards in my workspace as of 10/2020:

Markzolotoy_0-1603453214831.png

 

Thanks for your help, You pointed me in the right direction and this has resolved my issue.

Appreciate it a lot.

 

Take Care. 🙂

Anonymous
Not applicable

i have question here when we report refresh the tiles in dashbaord refreshes automatically or do we need to set any properties.

In my case i see numbers are being chnaged at report level but not in dashbaord. if anyone can help here?

in a very round about way!  Smiley Very Happy

 

glad its sorted.





If I took the time to answer your question and I came up with a solution, please mark my post as a solution and /or give kudos freely for the effort 🙂 Thank you!

Proud to be a Super User!




That sounds like what i needed. Ill give that a go, thanks. 🙂

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