What Are Organizational Content Packs In Power BI

Power BI Organizational Content Packs: What They Are and What Replaced Them

Power BI organizational content packs were an early method for sharing curated dashboards, reports, and datasets across an organization. Microsoft has officially deprecated content packs. Power BI Apps and workspaces are the modern replacement. This guide explains what content packs were, why they were deprecated, and how to migrate to Apps.

Key facts

• Microsoft deprecated organizational content packs in Power BI in 2022. They are no longer available for creation in new tenants.
• Power BI Apps replace content packs — Apps offer better governance, audience-based access control, and automatic update distribution.
• Content packs cannot be created in tenants after the deprecation date. Existing packs can still be consumed but not edited.
• Content pack consumers who customized their copies must recreate those customizations in the new App or workspace model.
• EPC Group migrates legacy Power BI environments including content pack migrations to Apps. Engagements start at $25,000.

What Were Organizational Content Packs?

Organizational content packs were one of Power BI's earliest sharing mechanisms. They let BI teams publish curated collections of dashboards, reports, and datasets to specific users or groups.

• Published from a Power BI workspace by the content pack creator.
• Consumed by users who subscribed from the AppSource tab in the Power BI service.
• Consumers received a personal copy of all dashboards and reports in the pack.
• Updates to the source content automatically pushed to consumer copies — until consumers customized their copy.
• Once a consumer customized their copy, automatic updates stopped.

Why Microsoft Deprecated Content Packs

Content packs created governance and scalability problems as Power BI grew to enterprise scale. Three core problems drove the decision to deprecate them.

• No audience-based access control — Content packs could only be shared with specific users or distribution groups, not dynamically managed audiences.
• Customization broke update distribution — Once a consumer customized their copy, they were disconnected from the publisher's updates.
• Proliferation of copies — Hundreds of consumer copies of the same dataset created storage waste and governance gaps.

What Replaced Content Packs — Power BI Apps

Power BI Apps are the modern replacement for organizational content packs. They solve all three content pack problems.

• Audience-based access — Publish different app sections to different audiences. HR sees HR reports. Finance sees Finance reports. All from one app.
• No consumer copies — Consumers view the publisher's version directly. No personal copies to proliferate.
• Centralized updates — Publisher updates the workspace content and republishes the app. All consumers see updates immediately.
• Better governance — App access is managed centrally. Row-level security applies at the dataset level.
• Workspace separation — Content development happens in the workspace. Consumers access only the published app — not the development environment.

Content Pack Migration to Power BI Apps

Migrating from content packs to Apps requires recreating the publisher-consumer structure in the modern workspace and App model. Four migration steps apply.

1. Inventory — Identify all existing content packs: creator, dataset, consumer list, and last-used date.
2. Redesign — Map content pack contents to the new App structure. Combine related packs into single Apps where possible.
3. Rebuild — Recreate the reports and datasets in a new workspace. Apply row-level security and sensitivity labels.
4. Publish and communicate — Publish the App. Notify consumers of the migration date and new access path. Decommission the old content pack.

Consumers who customized their personal copies must identify which customizations they need and request the publisher incorporate them into the App, or recreate them in their own workspace.

Row-Level Security in Power BI Apps

Power BI Apps do not manage data access — the dataset's row-level security (RLS) does. RLS is the most overlooked control in regulated industry deployments.

• RLS is configured in the semantic model (dataset), not in the App itself.
• Users who can view an App see only the data rows their RLS role permits.
• Object-level security (OLS) restricts which tables and columns a user can see in the model.
• Both RLS and OLS must be configured before publishing Apps that contain PHI, PII, or sensitive financial data.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Power BI organizational content pack?

A Power BI organizational content pack was a bundle of dashboards, reports, and datasets published by a BI team and subscribed to by other users. Microsoft deprecated content packs in 2022. Power BI Apps are the modern replacement.

What replaced Power BI content packs?

Power BI Apps replaced organizational content packs. Apps provide audience-based access control, centralized updates without consumer copies, and better governance. They are published from Power BI workspaces via the Power BI service.

How do I migrate from content packs to Power BI Apps?

Inventory existing content packs, redesign the content structure into App sections, rebuild reports and datasets in a new workspace with RLS applied, publish the App, and notify consumers. EPC Group provides content pack migration services starting at $25,000.

Can I still use content packs?

Existing content packs can still be consumed in tenants that had them before deprecation. However, new content packs cannot be created. Microsoft may fully remove the feature in a future Power BI service update.

What is the difference between a Power BI App and a workspace?

A workspace is where BI developers build and edit content — reports, datasets, dashboards. A Power BI App is a published, read-only view of workspace content distributed to consumers. Consumers access the App, not the workspace.

Schedule a Power BI modernization consultation

Talk to an EPC Group Power BI architect about your content pack migration, workspace governance, or App architecture. Call (888) 381-9725 or request a 30-minute discovery call.