Sharing .PBIX files between users with different Bit computers

[JZrgNd]

Hi.

I have searched on internet and forums for a solution for a problem. It seems that we have a different situation than most of the PowerBI users. We have a numbers of customers which all use the same database model for PowerBI. Due to privacy reasons we use direct query mode and our customers don’t see each other’s data and they all have their own database on a different location.

But our customers want to share the reports (.pbix files) with each other. Is there an easy way where our customers can use reports made by another customer and publish them from their own PowerBI desktop to their own PowerBI App in the cloud? It seems that changing the datasource of a report is not working for them (maybe it is possible, but not that easy). What are your suggestions for this situation?

Thanks in advance!

[JZrgNd]

Indeed, they don't want to share data but want to share the layout of the report.

It seems that your solution works for our situation!

Thank you for responding!

[lndnbrg · Accepted solution]

Maybe this will help you: https://guyinacube.com/2017/09/parameters-templates-power-bi-desktop/

As Eno1978 pointed out, a template may solve your problem, because it will not save any data with the pbix file and you can use the parameters to ask for customer specific settings.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@JZrgNd I might not understand the question, but it sounds like a scenario in which customer A builds a report and customer B wants to use the same layout to see their data in. NOT that customer A wants to share their data with customer B... accurate?

In the above case, as long as the datasets are the same in both databases, this should work. If it won't in the prompts, I would suggest making the changes to the M code directly in the advanced editor. Another option would be to have Customer A save their PBIX as a Template, that might ease the transition.

What errors is Customer B seeing?

[Mike_Carlo]

I would also check out this solution: https://powerbi.tips/2017/03/using-parameters-to-enable-sharing/