How to Get Power BI Link

Getting a sharable link for your Power BI report is the final step in turning your hard work into actionable insights for your team or the public. Whether you need a secure link for internal colleagues or a public link for a website, Power BI offers several ways to do it. This tutorial will walk you through the different methods for creating a Power BI link, explaining the best use case for each and how to handle permissions along the way.

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Before You Share: A Quick Checklist

Before you generate a link, it's helpful to consider a few key things to ensure your audience can actually see what you're sending them and that your data remains secure.

Power BI Licensing: Who Can See Your Report?

Licensing is the most common hurdle when sharing Power BI content. Here’s a quick breakdown:

• Power BI Free: You can only share content that you publish from "My Workspace," and others with Free licenses can only view it if the content is hosted in a Power BI Premium capacity. Essentially, Free users can't easily view reports shared by others.
• Power BI Pro: This is the standard. To share your report with another person and have them view it, you both generally need a Power BI Pro license.
• Power BI Premium Per User (PPU): Much like Pro, both the sharer and the viewer need a PPU license to collaborate.
• The Exception (Premium Capacity): If your organization has Power BI Premium capacity, you can share reports with Free users as long as the report is located in a Premium workspace. This is common in larger enterprises where a few report creators have Pro licenses, and the many viewers have Free licenses.

The takeaway: For most small and medium-sized teams, assume both you and your report viewers will need a Pro or PPU license for secure sharing.

Data Security and Audience

Ask yourself one simple question: Who should see this data? The answer determines the sharing method you should use.

• Private/Internal Audience: If the report contains sensitive company data — sales figures, customer information, performance metrics — you must use a secure sharing method directed at specific people or groups within your organization.
• Public/External Audience: If the data is meant for public consumption — an embedded visual on a blog, a public dashboard for a government agency — then the "Publish to web" feature is suitable. Just be 100% certain the data contains nothing confidential.

Method 1: Securely Sharing a Link with Specific People

This is the most common method for sharing reports with teammates, managers, or specific departments. It's secure, and you maintain complete control over who has access.

Follow these steps to generate a direct link for specific people in your organization:

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Step 1: Open Your Report in the Power BI Service

First, make sure your report has been published from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI service (app.powerbi.com). You cannot share directly from the Desktop application. Navigate to the workspace containing the report and open it.

Step 2: Click the 'Share' Button

At the top of your report view, you'll see a prominent "Share" button. Click it to open the sharing dialog box.

Step 3: Define Who Can Access the Link and Their Permissions

This menu gives you granular control over the link you're about to create. First, click on the default option, "People in your organization with the link can view and share," to see all your options:

• People in your organization: Creates a link that anyone inside your company can use to view the report. This is useful for general-purpose reports, like an all-hands dashboard.
• People with existing access: Generates a link you can send to people who have already been granted permission. It won't grant access to a new person. This is perfect for sending a reminder or a direct URL in a chat message.
• Specific people: This is the most secure and common choice. You'll specify individuals or Microsoft 365 groups by name or email address. Only the people you list will be able to use the link.

After selecting your audience (let's assume "Specific people"), type in the names or email addresses of your intended viewers.

Understanding Per User Permissions

Next, you’ll see checkboxes that define what recipients can do:

• Allow recipients to share this report: Check this if you want your recipients to be able to forward the report access to others. For sensitive reports, it’s best to leave this unchecked to maintain control.
• Allow recipients to build content with the data associated with this report: A powerful permission that gives recipients the ability to connect to your underlying data model and create their own reports. Enable this for analysts or team members who need to perform their own analysis.
• Send an email notification to recipients: When you hit Apply, this will send an email from Power BI with a link to the report. You can uncheck this if you prefer to copy the link and send it yourself.

Step 4: Get and Share Your Link

Once your permissions are set, click "Apply." You'll be back at the main sharing screen. Now, you can simply click the "Copy link" button. This will copy the unique, permission-based URL to your clipboard. That's the link you paste into an email, Microsoft Teams, Slack, or any other communication platform to share your work.

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Method 2: Publish to Web to Get a Public Link

This method creates a public embed code and link that anyone on the internet can use to view your report. It's great for embedding reports on websites or sharing non-sensitive data broadly, but comes with serious security caveats.

Important Security Warning: Once you use "Publish to web," your report and its data become public. Do not use this for any proprietary or confidential information. Microsoft may even feature your report in public content galleries. Only proceed if your data is truly safe for everyone to see.

Step 1: Navigate to 'Embed Report' in the File Menu

With your report open in the Power BI Service, go to File > Embed report > Publish to web (public).

(Note: If you don't see this option, your Power BI administrator has likely disabled it for security reasons. You'll need to talk to your IT department).

Step 2: Create and Publish Your Embed Code

A dialog box will appear, explaining the risks. If you are certain, click "Create embed code." A final confirmation prompt will appear. Click "Publish."

Step 3: Get Your Public Link

A final window will show you two things:

1. A link you can send directly to people. This is your sharable public URL.
2. An HTML iframe snippet you can copy and paste to embed the interactive Power BI report directly into a website or blog post.

You can manage all your active public links by going to Settings (gear icon) > Manage embed codes in Power BI Service. From there, you can retrieve the code again or delete it to revoke public access.

Method 3: Share a Link to a Power BI App

If you have a collection of related reports and dashboards that you want to distribute to a large audience within your organization, a Power BI App is the best way to do it. An app bundles all the content into a polished, professional package, and you share a single link to the entire app.

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Step 1: Create an App from Your Workspace

In your workspace that contains the reports you want to share, click the "Create app" button in the upper right corner.

Step 2: Configure the App Content and Audience

Power BI will guide you through a few tabs:

• Setup: Give your app a name, description, and logo.
• Content: Click "Add content" to select which reports, dashboards, and workbooks from the workspace will be included in your app. This allows you to selectively share content, keeping "work-in-progress" reports out of the final package.
• Audience: This is where you set permissions. You can grant access to specific users, Microsoft 365 Groups, or your entire organization. Just like sharing a single report, you can decide if users can connect to the underlying data or reshare the content.

Step 3: Publish the App and Get the Link

Once everything is configured, click "Publish app." After it is successfully published, a window will pop up with the direct link to the app. You can copy this link and send it out. Users with permission will be able to see and install the app, giving them access to all the content you curated within it.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the right way to get a Power BI link is all about matching your sharing method to your audience and data security needs. Use direct sharing for secure, controlled access among colleagues, publish to the web for public-facing data, and bundle content into an App for broad, official distribution within your organization.

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