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Setup Workspaces, Share Content & Publish Apps in Power BI

Posted by Sas Chatterjee on Apr, 24, 2019 01:04

Setup Workspaces, Share Content & Publish Apps in Power BI

In Power BI, one can easily create Workspaces to allow specific groups of people to access and edit Power BI reports and dashboards created with these spaces.

The Workspaces and Apps are situated in the cloud version of Power BI called Service. After setting these reports, these workspaces can be published as an application for the entire organization to consume and utilize for their Business Intelligence needs.

Whenever a new workspace is created, there is a group entity that is created in Office 365. All the members that are part of the workspace as an admin or otherwise will require a Power BI Pro license associated to their accounts.

Generally, members who are responsible for working on additional change items for different reports in workspace have the rights to access and edit and these reports are later published in the application for the entire organization or team to consume.

Setting up a new Workspace with Sharing Control in Power BI

There are certain steps you can follow to create your own Workspace group in Power BI Service.

Step 1: Create a new Workspace by logging into your Power BI Service account. See the option Workspace > Choose Create App Workspace

Workspaces

Step 2: Provide a title to the Workspace created. In this case, we have put the Workspace name as Sample Test. After providing the title, one can see the unique Workspace ID being generated. Going forward the publishing app will also have the same name. So, you can edit the name and ID per your needs.

Create a workspace

Step 3: There are a few options to choose from in the privacy settings. You can either select PUBLIC – To allow anyone to view the workspace. Another option is PRIVATE – To allow only approved team members to view the Workspace.

On the following menu, there are two more options to select. Either team members added can edit the Power BI Content or else members can view the Power BI content depending on permissions. It is always recommended to provide edit access to members first.

View only access permissions can be provided later when the workspace is published as an application to the entire organization.

Step 4: Now it’s time to add the email addresses of the workspace team members. As highlighted below, there are two options for each team member – ADMIN and MEMBER. An Admin can add other people and edit the entire workspace, however a member can only edit the space or view it depending on the permissions applied.

Now select SAVE to add the Workspace.

Step 5: Power BI Service will now open the Homepage to the Sample Test Workspace. You will now be able to see different options and in the sidebar, there are two options for every admin member – Either you can edit the workspace settings or leave the workspace.

The same workspace will now be synced as a new Office 365 group.

Note: Check out EPC Group’s blog on “What is an Office 365 Group.”

How to publish the app with reports and dashboards within your organization

In order to publish the application you should have some content in form of reports or dashboards setup in that app workspace. Let us quickly add two reports from Power BI Desktop to the app workspace. To accomplish this, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Open the report in Power BI Desktop > Check for the PUBLISH option in the home ribbon as represented in the below screen shot:

Step 2: You will now have the ability to select two options: Either publishing the report at your own workspace (My Workspace) or select from the App workspace that you are a team member or admin of.

Step 3: In this case, select sample test workspace that we just created. Now Power BI Desktop will publish this report to the workspace and you will get a success message window which indicates that the report has been published. Also, you will receive a link to open the report within the workspace selected in the Power BI Service account.

Step 4: Opening the Sample Test Workspace now will show you two reports that we have published from Power BI Desktop. There are no Dashboards created in this workspace, but we can create one using the two reports and setup accordingly.

Step 5: Before using the Publish App option at the top right corner, you can select which reports you would like to be included in the application. You can select the in-built option to keep the reports before actually publishing them in the workspace.

After publishing the app you can switch any report ON for users to view them.

Step 6: Now you can move forward with the Publishing option. In the first tab, enter the DETAILS you wish to choose for the App. Your description will educate the end users about the general background of the app and how you can use this to analyze different metrics. You also have the option of selecting the background color.

The next tab shows the CONTENT section. Here you can decide on a landing page for your app to allow people to view the report when they open the app. You can decide on the landing page for the reports that you have published in the app. See screenshot below:

The third and the final tab shows the ACCESS section. This is an important section where you can define the people, groups and organization to enable the viewing of these apps. There are two options available: ENTIRE ORGANIZATION and the second option: SPECIFIC INDIVIDUALS or GROUPS. If you are selecting the second option, enter the email addresses of the team members or groups addresses associated in the Office 365 setup.

Now click on FINISH option.

Step 7: You will get a dialog box that successfully reads App has been published to the entire organization and a link will be provided which can be shared.

After the app has been published, you can always update it based on the editing work done on the reports.

How to modify Sharing rights in a Workspace or an App?

 Always consider these points below when modifying the permission rights that are already assigned while a workspace was already created, or app was published:

  • You can edit the assigned permissions or delete the workspace you created by visiting the edit option anytime.
  • Opening the editing space will help you to set the privacy again to Private or Public and member rights as edit or view.
  • Also, after publishing the app, an option to edit the app appears when you open the landing page of the published app. You can view the edit open on the right corner of the screen.
  • You can edit member rights as Admin or general member providing the workspace owner to restrict someone from changing the dataset or reports which live in the application.
Sas Chatterjee
About the Author

Sas Chatterjee

Sas Chatterjee is a Senior Architect with EPC Group. His focus lies in making sure that the execution of each engagement is delivered in a forward compatible, best practices manner. Sas is an extremely devoted professional and takes each project he is assigned very seriously. During the project execution phase, Sas invests the time needed with his clients to gain a full understanding of their requirements and develops a roadmap for achieving their desired end goal.

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