Can PowerBI be embedded into my own application without dashboards and reports set up

[Anonymous]

Hi,

First time here, I have been researching powerBI and the plethora of different routes when using. Basically I want to be able to embed PowerBI i.e. so that a user accesses via my own app and therefore no existing license required. However I also want to be able to provide a workspace with connectors so that the user or developer can establish the connection but then the reports / dashboards can be built by the user.

The users will be external to the company.

I have read things on PowerBi embedded which seems like it satisfies most of this other than the fact that i get the impression reports need building for the users. We do not have that resource to be able to do that and im not sure whether this means embedded wont work. Premium sounds like this gets around that issue but cannot be embedded?

Help greatly appreciated, going round in circles with conflicting articles.

Thanks!

[collinq · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Power BI is not designed to work the way you are indicating.  If you want somebody without a license to create reports on your data you will have to have them use Power BI Desktop on their computer, give them full rights to your data and give them a way to connect to your network and your data.  This creates a large number of issues for you in regards to security and keeping your data protected but I guess that theoretically that would work.

If you want somebody to be able to create reports off of something you have already built, without them having full access to all your data then they will have to have a license.  You can share the report from your instance to them (internal or external) if your Admin has allowed for sharing.

It is not that expensive to get licenses and trying to get around that process will only lead to frustration and a total lack of security.