External Users being asked to create free Fabric Account

[MM_One4]

We have an organization that needs to share data with external users. We created a premium capacity workspace and we share an app that we built with both of these internal and external users. We provision access to the datasets and reports using security groups defined in Azure AD. These groups contain a mix of internal and external users. 

We began rolling this project out to a group of test users about 2 months ago and everything went as planned. Both internal and external users were able to access the app and view reports within their respective audiences. RLS functioned as expected on the datsets as well for both types of users. 

Fast forward to today. We have moved all our content to our production premium capactity workspace and mirrored all functionality from our intial testing in our test premium capacity workspace explained above. Right away we are running into issues with External users trying to access the app through the shared link. When they click the link, it makes them create a free Fabric account. After they complete the sign up, an error modal window pops up saying that the user either does not have access, or the app does not exist. 

I have the user try to click the link again in a fresh browser now that their free fabric account has been created, and they run into the same error. So I try to grant them memebership access to the entire workspace and still, no workspaces show up in their workspaces tab besides their personal one. I then realize that they are in a completely different tennat for their own microsoft organization. 

I do not understand how to share the app with external users anymore since it tries to open the app in their own organization's microsoft tennat instead of ours... I used to be able to just send them the link and it worked no problem, but now it is like powerbi is confused when it tries to open an application that does not exist in the tennat that the user is logged into...

Any thoughts around this? And why did this work before without any issues about 1-2 montths ago? Thanks! 

[GilbertQ]

Hi @MM_One4 

Could you check to make sure that the App Workspace is assigned as Premium and not as Fabric?

[MM_One4 · Accepted solution]

I discovered my issue... 

Turns out the wrong URL had been provided to the Beta testing users. The URL that was provided was copied and pasted from the URL bar after an internal user had already opened the app. When an external user tried to use that link, it tried to find that app within their own tennat becuase the URL had a "me" section in it.

Once we swapped the URL the users were supposed to be using with the correct one (The official share URL or the URL that pops up after each submission of changes on the workspace App), the external users were able to access the app as expected.

If anyone runs into this issue as well, just make sure to pay attention to the URL that is being shared. 

Worked for internal users only:
<"https://app.powerbi.com/groups/me/apps">

Worked for all users, copied from official "share" link:
<"https://app.powerbi.com/Redirect?action=OpenReport&appId">