Sharing with external users - what are the least complicated way to do it?

[jkevins]

Hello,

I'm looking to share a dashboard to external users, and the license that I have is Power BI Pro (institutional license). It seems that in order for external users to be able to view the dashboard, it would either require them to purchase a license (not viable since I'd need my users to have the least amount of hurdles as possible for this one) or us adding them as a guest via AAD or make the dashboard fully public. Are my inferences correct and if not, what would be the extra steps required to share the dashboard to external users (preferably targetted instead of fully public)?

Thanks!

[v-yetao1-msft]

Hi @jkevins 

Usually, we have two ways to invite external users to share content with them .

• Invite guest users : Through sharing report or dashboard to invite the guest user who require invitations the first time .
• Planned invites : If you know which users to invite , you can use planned invites . But you must be assigned the user admin role to invite people in AAD .

If you just want to share specify content to external users , I suggest you use Invite guest users .

Notice : Make sure you enable the Invite external users to your organization feature in the Power BI admin portal before inviting guest users.

More info about inviting external user you can refer to the link below :

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/admin/service-admin-azure-ad-b2b

I also found some scenarios for your reference .

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/guidance/whitepaper-azure-b2b-power-bi

Best Regard

Community Support Team _ Ailsa Tao

[edhans · Accepted solution]

This article from MS has the full details, including licensing. Distribute Power BI content to external guest users using Azure Active Directory B2B - Power BI | Mi...

What you do NOT want to do is publish to the web. If anyone you send that URL to inadvertently shares it with someone else via a forwarded email, or a REPLY ALL email where they add another person, than anyone with that URL can see it. You absolutely do not want to rely on "security by obscurity" here.

[jkevins]

Thank you for the response! It seems that only Power BI Admin would be able to add external users to AAD? Once the person is added, would it be safe to assume that I can add them directly via manage permission at Power BI Service? It seems implied but I just want to make sure. 

[edhans]

Actually the Office admin would need to. The Power BI Admin cannot add users to the AAD unless they are granted that role.

As for managing who can see what, if you are a member or admin of a workspace, then you can add/remove people from it.

[jkevins]

I see -

As for managing who can see what, if you are a member or admin of a workspace, then you can add/remove people from it.

---

---

but not adding people who has not been added to the AAD, correct? I tried adding an email of a person which is not within the institution and that person was re-directed to a power bi page where he was asked to login, but couldn't since he doesn't have a Microsoft email.

What's interesting was that viewing dashboard is possible for external partners whose email was added via manage permission in Power BI service (but not in AAD) several months ago under "trial license", but now unable to access.

I suppose then the admin has to add the power bi pro license to the person who just been added to the AAD for them to be able to see the dashboard?