Power BI Workspaces & Apps

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This article explains the Workspace and App in Power BI Service.

Detailed Information

Workspaces & Apps Overview

Once a report is created in Power BI Desktop, the report will be published to Power BI Service (PBI Online). PBI Service contains Workspaces that are places to collaborate with colleagues on reports and semantic models. The Workspace helps you better manage access to content.  You can also allow others to build their reports from your semantic model. 

From a Workspace, you can package selected reports and distribute them to a broad audience in what Power BI calls an App. Not to be confused with an app on your phone, these Apps are spaces for distributing Power BI content to a large group, especially if they are consumers you do not work with as closely. Each workspace can only have one App. 

This is the recommended method of publishing to a wide audience, as it is safer than publishing to the web. 

Diagram illustrating the Power BI Service structure, showing workspaces, report and dataset sharing, premium capacity, and options to publish to departments or the web.

My Workspace

Each licensed Power BI user has a private area called My Workspace. My Workspace should be used very minimally because:

  • Content is owned and may be edited by only one person
  • Content cannot be edited if the owner is on vacation, out sick, or leaves the institution
  • The only way to allow others to see content in My Workspace is via sharing, which is not recommended by the UMS
  • Apps cannot be generated from content in My Workspace

Generally, all critical content should be placed within a (departmental) Workspace instead of My Workspace

Workspaces

The initial setup for your department's workspace is done by IT administrators. Workspace can be thought of as:

  • A way to logically group or organize departmental content
  • A space to collaborate with members of your department on projects before final publication
  • A security boundary

The primary purpose of a Workspace is team collaboration between multiple people who create reports and semantic models, review Workspace content, and test its validity. You can request a departmental Workspace using the Power BI Workspace Request Form.

Workspace Permissions & Roles

Workspace permissions are managed by workspace owners. Limit Workspace access to people who are handling authoring, development, or testing activities only.  The following is a summary of permissions for each workspace role:

Permissions

Admin

Member

Contributor

Viewer

Edit/delete workspace

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Add admins

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Add members

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Share

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Publish/update apps

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Add/edit/delete content

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View content

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Please go to Roles in workspaces in Power BI on the Microsoft site for more information.

Power BI App

Apps are focused on content distribution to a larger population of users. 

  • An app represents a subset of related reports and dashboards from a Workspace 
  • Viewers of an app are always read-only
  • Individual objects may be excluded from the app when appropriate, but otherwise, the app is aligned with the workspace (i.e., there is only one app per workspace)Comparison chart showing that workspaces are best for small teams collaborating closely, while apps suit large teams or broad content distribution.

Permissions for an App

Permissions are set separately for an App than for the workspace. Since Apps have a separate permissions model, this allows for all consumers to obtain content via the App. This reserves workspace permissions for only those colleagues who will create, edit, or test content before it is published in an App. Using groups to assign permissions is highly encouraged. Managing permissions through groups reduces administrative overhead. You can add more users than adding the user individually (max =100).

All App users must have "Read" permission on the underlying semantic model and be added to a Row-Level Security role. Otherwise, they will not be able to see data or even open the App. Please go to Publishing an Application - App in Power BI page for more information.

Sharing Content

You can also share a report individually using the "Share" function. When content is shared, it is always a read-only experience for the recipient of the share. Sharing is specified for each dashboard and report.

Since sharing is done on an individual object basis, it should be used as the exception rather than the rule. Sharing from My Workspace should be used very sparingly. Sharing from Workspace is acceptable when:

  • You need to allow read-only access to one piece of content (rather than everything in the workspace or everything published to an App)
  • You do not want the recipient to see other content

Sharing should be used for informal scenarios where content is shared with just a few people who work closely together, otherwise, an App is a recommended tool to share reports.

Environment

  • Power BI
 
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