In this lesson, we will walk through how to create a dashboard in the Power BI Service from a published report and how to share those insights within your organization. A Power BI dashboard is a single-page canvas that provides a high-level view of your key metrics and visuals[3]. We’ll demonstrate how to pin visuals (like KPIs or charts) from a report to build a dashboard, how clicking a dashboard tile navigates back to the detailed report, and how to share reports/dashboards with colleagues (covering both sharing via link and direct access, plus basic permissions). Finally, we’ll tie it all together with a brief case study example to illustrate the end-to-end process.

Creating a Dashboard from a Published Report (Step-by-Step)

After publishing your report to the Power BI Service, follow these steps to create a dashboard and pin key visuals:

1. Open the Report in Power BI Service: Navigate to your workspace in the Power BI service and open the report you want to use. If you have edit rights, click Edit (pencil icon) to enter Editing view[4]. (Dashboards can only be created in Power BI Service, not in Power BI Desktop[3].)

2. Choose a Visual to Pin: Identify a key visual (e.g., a KPI card or important chart) in the report that you want on the dashboard. Hover over that visualization; you’ll see a pushpin (📌) icon in the visual’s top corner. Click the Pin icon to add this visual to a dashboard[4].

3. Select Destination Dashboard: In the Pin to dashboard dialog, choose where to pin the visual:

   • New dashboard – to create a brand new dashboard for these insights. If you choose New dashboard, enter a name for it (for example, “Sales Overview Dashboard”)[4].
   • Existing dashboard – to add to a pre-existing dashboard (select the dashboard name from the dropdown)[4].

   For this first visual, select New dashboard and provide a descriptive name.

4. Pin the Visual: Click the Pin button to confirm. Power BI will create the new dashboard in your current workspace and add the selected visual as a tile on it[4]. You’ll see a confirmation message saying “Pinned to dashboard.”

5. Go to the New Dashboard: After pinning, click Go to dashboard on the confirmation, or manually navigate to the new dashboard. If prompted to save the report at this point, choose Save[4]. The dashboard will open, showing the pinned visual as a tile on the canvas[4].

6. View the Dashboard Tile: The dashboard now provides a high-level view of that visual. For example, if you pinned a “Total Sales” KPI card, the dashboard will show that metric at a glance. This one-page dashboard is meant to display only the highlights of your data story[3]. You can rearrange or resize the tile on the dashboard if needed (e.g., drag it to a desired position).

7. Interact – Click Tile to See Details: To demonstrate interactivity, click the tile on the dashboard. Power BI will drill through to the underlying report, opening the report page where the visual came from[4]. In other words, selecting a dashboard visualization takes you back to the full report that it’s based on[3], so users can explore the detailed data if they want more context.

8. Pin Additional Visuals: Return to the report (or if it opened via the tile, you’re already there) and pin a couple more important visuals to build out your dashboard: repeat the hover and Pin icon. This time, in the Pin dialog choose Existing dashboard and pick your newly created dashboard from the list[4]. For example, you might pin a line chart showing sales trends and a bar chart of sales by region. Each visual you pin becomes a new tile on the dashboard. After pinning a few visuals, go view the dashboard again – it now contains multiple tiles, giving a broader overview.

   💡 Tip: As a shortcut to capture many visuals at once, you have the option to pin an entire report page as a single live tile[4]. If you pin a whole page, all visuals on that page appear together on the dashboard tile and remain interactive (you can click slicers, etc., on the tile). Changes in the report (filters, data updates) will be reflected in that live page tile on the dashboard[4]. This can be useful to quickly create a full mini-dashboard, but pinning individual key visuals (as we did above) lets you arrange and size them separately on the dashboard.

Result: You have created a dashboard in the Power BI Service by pinning a couple of key report visuals. The dashboard provides a high-level summary of the data (on one page), and each tile is linked to the detailed report for deeper analysis on click[3]. This is great for monitoring important metrics at a glance.

Combining Visuals from Multiple Reports

One powerful feature of Power BI dashboards is that they aren’t limited to a single report’s visuals. A dashboard can aggregate tiles from many different reports and datasets (as long as you have access to pin those reports in the workspace)[3]. This means you can create, for example, a “Executive Summary” dashboard that shows KPIs from Finance, Sales, and Marketing reports all in one place.

• In practice, you would open each relevant report and pin the desired visual to the same dashboard (choosing the existing summary dashboard each time). Now your dashboard combines metrics from multiple areas. The Power BI dashboard acts as a consolidated one-page view of critical information across different domains[3].

This capability lets decision-makers avoid hopping between separate reports – they get a customized overview of key metrics on one screen. (For instance, an executive dashboard might include a finance visual (e.g. profit margin), a sales visual (revenue vs. target), and an operations visual (capacity utilization), all assembled together.)

Sharing Reports and Dashboards with Others

After creating insights, the next step is to disseminate them to your team or stakeholders. Power BI offers easy ways to share dashboards and reports within your organization. When you share a report or dashboard, the recipients can view and interact with it (filter, highlight, etc.), but they cannot edit the original content[2]. Below are the common sharing methods and key points about permissions:

1. Sharing via Direct Access (Share Button)

You can directly share a dashboard or report with specific people or groups by granting them access in Power BI:

• Open the content to share: In the Power BI Service, go to the dashboard or report you want to share. Click the Share button (usually at the top menu bar).
• Enter Recipients: In the share dialog, you’ll have an option to add people or groups. Enter the email addresses or names of colleagues within your organization who should get access[2]. You can also add an optional message (e.g., “Please see our latest sales dashboard…”) to the invitation.
• Permissions: Choose the permission settings. By default, recipients get view access. For dashboards, you can optionally allow:
  • Reshare (let them share it with others)[2].
  • Build (let them use the underlying dataset to create their own content)[2].
    These options appear as checkboxes (and are typically enabled by default for internal sharing, which you can uncheck if not desired).
• Send Invitation: Click Grant access or Share to send the invite[2]. The specified users will receive an email with a link, and the dashboard/report will also show up for them in Power BI (typically under “Shared with me”).

Once shared, the recipients can open the dashboard or report in their Power BI account and interact with it (filter data, click tiles to view underlying reports, etc.) but they won’t be able to edit or save changes to your original content[2]. The data they see will be the same as you see, so make sure to implement row-level security (RLS) on the dataset if you need to restrict sensitive data by user roles[2].

2. Sharing via Link

Power BI also allows sharing by generating a secure link that you can send to others (within your organization):

• Copy a Shareable Link: With the report open, click the Share button. In the share dialog, look for an option to Copy link (this creates a link accessible to people in your organization by default)[2]. You can adjust the link settings if needed (e.g., restrict to specific people).
• Link Settings: Ensure the link is set to “People in your organization with the link can view” (or specify particular people)[2]. Power BI may let you choose between link types: e.g., People in your organization vs. Specific people[2]. Choose the appropriate option for your scenario.
• Share the Link: Copy the generated link and send it via email or chat to your colleagues. If you used Specific people, Power BI can directly email them for you when you hit Send after entering their addresses[2].

When recipients click the link, it will open the report in Power BI service for them (after signing in). They’ll have view access, similar to the direct share above[2]. The link will only work for those who have been granted access or meet the link criteria (for security – others can’t use that link if not authorized)[2].

3. Considerations for Sharing

• Licensing: To share content, you (the owner) need a Power BI Pro license (or the workspace must be in a Premium capacity). Likewise, recipients usually need Power BI Pro licenses to view shared content, unless the content is in a Premium capacity workspace[2]. Ensure everyone has the proper licenses or access, otherwise they may be prompted to upgrade.
• Workspace vs. Sharing: The methods above share individual items. Alternatively, you can give users access to the workspace where the content lives (with roles like Viewer, Member, etc.), but that’s outside our scope here. For a simple approach, using the Share button as shown is sufficient for most cases.
• Internal vs. External: The examples above assume sharing within your organization (which is most common for beginners). Power BI can share dashboards/reports with external guest users, but it requires the external user to sign in with their email and possibly have a license. Internal sharing is most straightforward, so we focus on that.
• Permissions and Resharing: By default, those you share with cannot reshare the content with others unless you give them that permission[2]. They also cannot edit your dataset or report unless you grant Build permission or give them edit access via workspace roles. Briefly put, shared users are viewers of your content. You maintain control over who else can see it.
• Seeing Shared Content: Users you shared with will find the dashboard under Shared with me in Power BI. If you shared a dashboard, note that any report tiles on that dashboard will also be accessible (Power BI will automatically ensure they can view the underlying report and data behind a dashboard tile). This way, everything needed is included in the share.

Case Study: From Report to Dashboard to Mobile Sharing

Let’s tie it all together with a realistic scenario:

Scenario: You are a data analyst for a retail company. You’ve created a detailed Retail Sales Report in Power BI Desktop showing metrics like total sales, sales growth, and sales by region. You publish this report to the Power BI Service for your team to use. Now you want to share key insights with the Regional Sales Managers in an easy-to-digest format.

Steps and Outcome:

• Publish and Dashboard Creation: After publishing the report, you create a “Retail Sales Overview” dashboard. From the retail sales report, you pin a few critical visuals to a new dashboard: a Total Sales KPI card, a Sales vs Target column chart, and a Sales by Region map. These three visuals now appear as tiles on your dashboard, giving a one-page summary of retail performance. The dashboard provides an at-a-glance view of the business’s health – the managers can quickly see how sales are tracking without combing through the entire report.

• Interactive Drill-through: One of the regional managers wants more detail on the Sales vs Target numbers. They can simply click the corresponding tile on the Retail Sales Overview dashboard, and Power BI will take them directly into the full report page that contains the Sales vs Target chart[3]. There, they can explore filters or other visuals for that insight. After analysis, they navigate back to the dashboard (the high-level view).

• Sharing with Regional Managers: You use the Share feature to distribute this dashboard to all Regional Managers. By entering their email addresses in the dashboard’s Share dialog and hitting Grant access, each manager gets an email and access to the dashboard[2]. Now, when they log into Power BI, they can all view the Retail Sales Overview dashboard on their own. They have read-only access, meaning they see the latest metrics and can interact with the filters or drill-through, but they cannot modify the dashboard or report contents[2].

• Mobile Access: The Regional Managers are often traveling, so they use the Power BI Mobile app on their phones to check the dashboard. Power BI dashboards are accessible on mobile devices for viewing and sharing (you just can’t create or edit them on mobile)[3]. The managers open the Power BI app, and the shared Retail Sales Overview dashboard is there for them – providing a convenient, on-the-go view of the sales KPIs. The experience is optimized so they can tap a tile on their phone and see the detailed report if needed, just like on the web.

• Data Alerts for Thresholds: One manager is particularly interested in being notified if any metric goes beyond a certain threshold. For instance, if daily sales drop below a target (or spike above a threshold), they’d like an alert. Power BI makes this easy: on the dashboard, they can use the Manage alerts option on a KPI tile to set a data alert. They define the condition (e.g., “Total Sales falls below $50k”) and Power BI will automatically notify them (via email and notification) if that condition is met[1]. This way, they don’t even need to constantly check – the system alerts them about critical changes. (Alerts can be set on dashboard tiles of type gauge, KPI, or card, etc., when you have Pro or the dashboard is in premium capacity)[1]. In our case, the managers set an alert on the Total Sales KPI tile to ping them if sales dip too low or surge unexpectedly.

By following these steps, the Retail Sales team now has a streamlined end-to-end solution: from a detailed report created by the analyst to an executive-friendly dashboard and finally to widespread sharing and proactive alerts. The Regional Managers can easily access insights anytime (web or mobile) and stay informed about important changes in the data[1]. This demonstrates how Power BI facilitates not just creating visuals, but also distributing insights and enabling data-driven decision making across an organization.

In Summary, we have learned how to create a Power BI dashboard from a report, use it as a high-level monitoring tool, and share those insights with others in our organization. We pinned key visuals to build a one-page dashboard and saw that clicking a tile brings us back into the detailed report for exploration. We also covered how to share dashboards/reports either by directly granting access or by sending a link, and touched on permission settings to control what recipients can do.

Finally, the case study illustrated how these pieces come together in a real-world scenario – publishing a report, creating a dashboard of key KPIs, sharing it with colleagues (even on mobile), and setting up alerts for important thresholds. With these skills, you can ensure that your Power BI insights are not only created but also effectively communicated and leveraged by those who need them. Happy dashboarding and sharing! 🚀

References