How to copyright or patent my Power BI reports

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I need some help in understanding on how can we copyright or restrict our power bi reports. Putting up a scenario below for making my question a bit more clear

We as a team have developed some reports currently and the end users have loved them. We have been receiving multiple requests now for developing reports acroos multiple functions. What we want to do is that develop the reports and put it in production and then we want the end customer to come back to us if there's anything related to the maintenance of the report. We don't want them to present the reports as their own developments. Basically we want to have some kind of patent or copyright on the reports.

I have been creating reports but this is something that I really need to know on urgent basis. I am not having much idea on how all this would work out. Can someone please guide a step by step process on how can I go ahead in setting this whole thing up. Would we also need to share the PBIX file with them? Or can they just directly go ahead and refresh their reports through power bi service? How can all this work in an automated way. Really confused on how to start with this

Looking for some urgent help on this. If there are any clarifications needed on my question then please do let me know I will try and put it in a better way.

[Sumanth_23]

hi @Anonymous  - there is no particular way to patent the report as such other than to probably put a water mark or an image with a disclaimer with regard to the author of the report

From a sharing prospective you should split the data model and report and share the report via the Power BI service; and here you will be able control the access of who views your report as well. Also if a user downloads the pbix file they will only be able to view the report and will not be able to the underlying data and the logic that has been built using DAX. 

Refer to the below links on the topic: 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/guidance/report-separate-from-model

https://powerbi.tips/2020/06/split-an-existing-power-bi-file-into-a-model-and-report/

Please mark the post as a solution and provide a 👍 if my comment helped with solving your issue. Thanks! 

[Anonymous]

Hi @Sumanth_23 thank you for your reply. I suppose this would be the way for me to go ahead with it. However have couple of more questions.

If I have to just put it step by step then would it be like below

1. I build a data model and report using two separate PBIX files and publish both of them (same workspace or different?)

2. I then only give access of the report to the users. (If only view access it provided, would they still get an option of analyse in excel?)

3. Also if edit access is provided then would that mean they would be able to build reports on that dataset?

Also have been reading about workspace and apps. Would workspace apps be of help in such scenarios?

My apologies if I sound confusing as I am just trying to figure out how this would work keeping in mind such project based scenarios which would require long term planning. Thank you in advance

[Sumanth_23 · Accepted solution]

hi @Anonymous - The approach or steps that I would recommend is: 

1. Create a pbix file which has the data model - tables, calculated columns and measures etc.
2. Publish the dataset to Power BI service
3. Connect in a new pbix file (report) to the published dataset using the "Power BI datasets" option and then build out your reports - the dataset and the report could be published to the same or different workspaces
4. If access is provided at the dataset level the user can also build their own reports using the "Power BI datasets" option as a source as mentioned in #3.
5. Workspace apps are just a cleaner way to publish and share reports - this way you can use your workspace as a staging area and then only publish the required reports to the app. You can check out the below video on the detailed differences of apps vs. workspaces - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-9e8AtbSsM

Please mark the post as a solution and provide a 👍 if my comment helped with solving your issue. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi @Sumanth_23 thank you for detailing it out. 

One last question that I have is how can my customers then publish their daily reports if they don't have the PBIX file with the model with them? Because as far as I understand, the dataset would need to be refreshed first for all the reports to be updated.. so how would this work out?

[Sumanth_23]

hi @Anonymous  - you can schedule the refresh for the dataset - in this scenario the dataset pbix file can be scheduled to refresh (once or numerous times in the day) depending on the business requirement and your license type and ALL reports that have been developed using this dataset file as a source (option - Power BI datasets) will see updates based on the new and refreshed data

 Please mark the post as a solution and provide a 👍 if my comment helped with solving your issue. Thanks!