How to enable external sharing for Power Bi

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Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to turn on external sharing for Power BI reports and dashboards:

Step 1: Sign in to Power BI Admin Portal

  1. Open the Power BI Admin Portal by logging into your Power BI account and navigating to the settings section. You need to have Power BI Administrator privileges to access this area.
  2. From the left-hand menu, go to Tenant Settings. This will bring up a range of options that allow you to configure how Power BI behaves within your organization.

Step 2: Configure External Sharing Settings

  1. In the Tenant Settings area, look for the option labeled Export and sharing settings. Within this, you will see the option to allow sharing with external users.
  2. Under Export and sharing settings, ensure that Share content with external users is enabled. You will see the following options:
    • Allow external sharing of content: This option allows users to share Power BI content with external guests.
    • Allow sharing to non-licensed users: This option can be enabled to share reports with users who do not have Power BI licenses (through Power BI Embedded or Premium).
  3. Save changes once you’ve configured the external sharing settings as per your requirements.

Step 3: Share Reports and Dashboards

Once external sharing has been enabled at the tenant level, individual users can start sharing content with external stakeholders. Here’s how:

  1. Open the report or dashboard you wish to share.
  2. Click on the Share icon at the top-right corner of the screen.
  3. In the sharing window, enter the email address of the external user you wish to share the report with. If they have a Power BI account, you can share it directly; otherwise, they will receive an invitation to create a Power BI account.
  4. You can also specify whether you want to allow the recipient to reshare the content with others.
  5. Once you’ve selected the appropriate sharing settings, click Send.