How to Add a Report to an App in Power BI

You've done the hard work of connecting your data, cleaning it up in Power Query, building a solid data model, and creating compelling visuals in a Power BI report. Now comes the final, critical step: getting that report into the hands of the people who need it. Just sending a link to the report in your workspace can be messy and confusing for your end-users. That's where Power BI Apps come in. This guide will walk you through exactly how to add your reports to an app for a clean, professional, and controlled sharing experience.

Why Use a Power BI App in the First Place?

Before jumping into the "how," it's helpful to understand the "why." A Power BI "App" is simply a polished and packaged collection of dashboards, reports, and workbooks that you distribute to a specific audience. Think of your Power BI workspace as the professional kitchen - messy, full of tools, works-in-progress, and ingredients (datasets). An App, on the other hand, is the beautifully plated meal you present in the dining room. It’s the final, curated experience for your consumers.

There are several key advantages to using an app over sharing directly from a workspace:

• Simplified User Experience: When users open an app, they only see the reports and dashboards you've explicitly included. They aren’t cluttered with underlying datasets, draft reports, or other assets from your workspace.
• Controlled Access and Permissions: You can define a specific audience for your app, ensuring only the right people see your data. You can even create different audience views, showing or hiding certain reports for different user groups.
• Centralized Hub for Content: You can bundle multiple related reports and dashboards into a single app. A "Sales Performance App," for example, could contain reports for a high-level executive summary, a breakdown by region, and leaderboards for individual reps - all in one place with organized navigation.
• Branding and Professionalism: Apps allow you to add a logo, custom color schemes, and descriptive text, presenting your reports in a professional, branded package that feels like a finished product.

Before You Begin: Prerequisites to Publish an App

Before you can create and share an app, you need a few things in place. Running into a roadblock here is a common source of frustration, so let’s make sure you’re set up for success.

• A Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) license: To distribute content via an app, you need a Pro or PPU license. Your users will also need one to view it, unless the content is hosted in a Power BI Premium capacity.
• Admin, Member, or Contributor role in the workspace: You can't publish an app from a workspace where you only have "Viewer" permissions. You need elevated rights to manage the content.
• At least one published report: Make sure the report you want to include in your app has already been published from Power BI Desktop to the target workspace.

Step-by-Step Guide: Adding a Report to a Power BI App

With the foundations in place, you're ready to build and publish your app. The process is straightforward and happens entirely within the Power BI Service online.

Step 1: Navigate to Your Workspace

Log in to your Power BI account at app.powerbi.com. On the left-hand navigation pane, click on Workspaces and select the workspace that contains the report(s) you want to share.

Step 2: Start the App Creation Process

In the top-right corner of your workspace view, you’ll see a button that says either Create app (if you’ve never created one in this workspace) or Update app (if one already exists). Click this button to open the app setup screen.

Step 3: Configure Your App's Setup Details

This screen is divided into three main tabs: Setup, Content, and Audience. The first tab, Setup, is where you define the app's branding and appearance.

• App name: Give your app a clear and descriptive name, like "Quarterly Marketing Performance" or "Sales Team Dashboard." This is what users will see in their list of apps.
• Description: Add a short description (up to 256 characters) explaining what the app is for. This is a great place to provide context for your audience.
• Support site: If you have an internal wiki, SharePoint page, or a contact point for help, you can link it here.
• App logo: Upload a company logo or an icon to make your app easily identifiable.
• App theme color: Choose a color that matches your company's branding for a more cohesive look and feel.

Step 4: Add Your Reports to the "Content" Tab

This is the main event! Click on the Content tab to select what you want to include in your app.

Click the + Add content button. A panel on the right will appear, showing you all the assets in your workspace. You can filter by content type (Reports, Dashboards, etc.). Select the report you want to add by checking the box next to its name. You can select multiple items at once to add them all to your app.

After adding your content, you'll see it listed on the main Content screen. By default, anything you add will be included in the app, but you can use the little "eye" icon to show or hide specific items for different audiences later on.

Step 5: Organize the App Navigation

Once your content is added, you can organize how users will navigate through it. This is a simple but powerful feature for improving usability.

• Reorder items: Simply drag and drop the reports in the list to change the order they appear in the app's navigation menu.
• Create Sections: For apps with a lot of content, you can click New section to create folder-like groupings. For example, you could create a "Leadership KPIs" section and a "Regional Drill-Downs" section to keep things tidy.
• Rename items: You can even rename the reports as they appear in the app's navigation without changing the original report's name in the workspace. Just hover over the item, click the three-dot menu, and select "Rename."

Step 6: Define Your Audience and Publish

The final tab, Audience, is where you control who gets to see your app.

By default, you see one "Audience" group. You can rename this from "Audience 1" to something more descriptive like "Sales Team" or "Executive Leadership."

In the "Manage audience access" pane on the right, you can either share with the Entire organization or specify access for individual users or email-enabled security groups. This is how you ensure that only the intended recipients have access.

Advanced Audience Management

You can add new audience groups by clicking the + New Audience tab. This allows you to create different views of the same app. For example, your "Executive Leadership" audience might see all three reports in your app, but your "Regional Managers" audience might only see two of them (by hiding the third using the "eye" icon on the content page for that audience group).

Finalizing Permissions

Before publishing, you can manage a couple of important settings for the chosen audience:

• Allow users to share this app...: Lets users share the app with others who also have access.
• Allow users to build content with the underlying datasets...: This is a powerful setting that gives skilled users permission to create their own reports from your app’s data, fostering a self-service analytics culture.

Finally, click Publish app (or Update app). After a few moments, a pop-up will appear with a link to the app that you can copy and share with your audience.

Pro-Tips for Managing Your Apps

• Updates Aren't Immediate: When you change a report in your workspace, the published app doesn't update automatically. You must go back in and click "Update app" again. This is a feature, not a bug, as it allows you to stage changes without affecting the live version until you’re ready.
• Use Descriptive Names: Naming matters. "Report_V4_Final_New" is confusing as a navigation item. Give your reports and sections clear, intuitive names in the app navigation settings.
• Keep the Workspace Clean: Remember the kitchen analogy. A tidy workspace is easier to manage. Keep old versions or experimental reports clearly marked so you don't accidentally package them into your polished app.

Final Thoughts

Learning to create and manage apps in Power BI transforms you from a report builder into a true data distributor. It’s the official, structured method for sharing insights, providing a clean, curated, and secure experience for your business users, far superior to juggling individual report links.

While Power BI is incredibly capable for enterprise reporting, the process of setting up workspaces, managing permissions, and manually packaging apps can become time-consuming, especially for busy marketing and sales teams. That's exactly why we built Graphed. We wanted to skip the setup headaches and get straight to the insights. By simply connecting your data sources and asking questions in plain English - like "create a dashboard showing my campaign ROI for the last month" - you get real-time, shareable dashboards in seconds, not hours.