Publishing Report to Multiple People

[khappersett]

I have read many articles and threads on this forum that are similar but haven't found a concrete answer, unless its just not an option...

I have reports tailored to different departments that I want to share with select people. I want the President to have access to ALL reports, and then people in specific departments to only have access to their reports. Right now I have different workspaces for each department (some for individuals too if they only have access to one of the reports for a given department). There is a lot of overlap in doing this and I have the same report in multiple workspaces. This is annoying because if I change something or refresh anything I have to republish the report in all workspaces instead of just once. If I create dashboards for each report and just share those with select people, it makes things easier, but I want all users to have access to the datasets to create their own reports, which they cannot do from just having access to the dashboard (unless I am missing something). If I create a content pack and share that with everyone, they have access to the dataset, but when they create a new report it just makes a copy of the original dataset. So now when the dataset is refreshed, their custom report won't be updated as it is using a copy of the original data, correct? Seems like there should be a way to upload the reports and just share each individual report with multiple users so they can access it.

[malagari]

You could publish the various department reports to your workspace, and publish them as Content Packs (I believe they're called Apps now).  Then, in the department's workspace, you can use the "Get Data" function in the bottom-left of the navbar to pull in the Content Pack for the respective department.  This should give you a little more control (i.e. setting the refresh schedule) and it will trickle down to anyone who consumed the Content Pack (App).

[khappersett]

Wouldn't I still need to have a separate workspace for every group then? For example, I have two sales reports - one for Canada and one for the USA. I would like to have just one workspace called Sales with both reports, and just choose individuals to have access to each report. If I share a content pack, they won't have access to the dataset without making a copy of the original. If I add the content pack to the workspace, then all users would have access to it, correct?

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@khappersett,

You can have only one workspace, and publish different reports to the workspace. Then in the workspace, you can create dashboards for each report, then create different content packs and distribute the content packs to different departments.

Moreover, as your post, users can make a copy of original report and customize their own report, but when there are changes in the content packs, their customized report will not be updated.

In addition, in your scenario, it would be better to implement Row Level security. You can create a single report in Power BI Desktop, and display specific data for specific groups following the guide in the blogs below. After you publish the report to Power BI Service, you can create a dashboard and share the dashboard to your users. The users can see their own data from the dashboard and they are able to access the dataset using "Analyze in Excel" feature, in Excel, they can create their own reports. And once you make changes to the data source, the report can be automatically updated based on the schedule you set in Power BI Service, and users can get updated data.

http://radacad.com/dynamic-row-level-security-with-power-bi-made-simple
https://datachant.com/2017/05/24/row-level-security-power-bi/

Regards,
Lydia

[khappersett]

Thanks for the information. I will check out the row level security option but not sure any of these choices will really do what I'd like. I want users to be able to create their own report in Power BI (not excel) and have their reports update when the dataset is updated.

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@khappersett,

With content packs, user can't have their own customized reports updated once your dataset is updated.

Regards,
Lydia

[Twilla · Accepted solution]

Hi khappersett,

The only right answer to your question is that what you want is not possible...

The MS Power BI team should make it possible for us to select more than one workspace when we press publish...

Cheers

[khappersett]

@Twilla

This is the conclusion I had come to, but thought I'd ask before assuming it was not possible. Thanks for confirming. You'd think this would be an option and that they'd allow one dataset to be the source for reports on multiple workspaces so we don't have to refresh each individually.