PowerBI.tips

Sharing Strategies – Ep. 303

March 20, 2024 By Mike Carlo , Tommy Puglia
Podcast Power BI
Sharing Strategies – Ep. 303

Mike and Tommy talk through practical sharing strategies in the Power BI / Fabric world — what to share, how to share it, and how to avoid turning collaboration into chaos.

News & Announcements

Main Discussion

Sharing is easy to get working and surprisingly hard to get right. In this episode, Mike and Tommy focus on the practical decisions that make sharing predictable: what artifacts should be shared, how access should be granted, and how to structure collaboration so people can move fast without breaking each other.

What Should You Share (and What Should You Avoid)?

They discuss the tradeoffs between sharing finished reports, sharing semantic models, and sharing upstream assets. The big idea: the closer you share to the “source of truth”, the more value you unlock — but the more intentional you must be about governance.

Keep Collaboration From Turning Into Chaos

They also talk through how organizations accidentally create a mess: ad-hoc sharing, unclear ownership, and building one-off artifacts that can’t be trusted or reused. A little structure up front (naming, ownership, and repeatable patterns) keeps sharing sustainable.

Looking Forward

To move this forward, choose one idea from the discussion and apply it to a current report or model. From there, write down what changed (and what didn’t) so the lesson sticks so the approach is repeatable.

Episode Transcript

0:31 n good morning and welcome back to the explicit measures podcast with Tommy Seth and Mike good morning everyone good morning and Happy Tuesday Tuesday it is time flies when you’re having fun boom yeah recordings and conferences and it’s three weeks of major conferences three weeks of events and we still have to work so not too bad March is a busy month March has been extremely busy with that being said

1:04 extremely busy with that being said our main topic for today let’s jump in real quick here for our main topic today we’re going to talk about some of our mailbag items I think we had a couple questions come in here but we’re going to talk about parbi sharing strategies for external clients what does that look like how would you do that what are the considerations and things you need there I’ve built a lot of these Solutions so I have a lot of opinions about how to make this a seamless good experience and we’re in for a treat if we get to to it if we get to it because it’s been so busy so let’s do some news we’ve had yeah we’ve had a

1:37 do some news we’ve had yeah we’ve had a lot of recordings and man Tommy we we got a lot of news today so some of these are really interesting topics in of themselves but we’ll see we’ll see Mike if we even get to the mwag that’s true there so many things went out I don’t know but it’s worth talking about it because like I said a lot of the pre-recording cuts out on the the catchup with the news and lot has been pushed out there so let’s just jump off with I think what I would consider like one of the major main topics that’s occurring right now Kim Manis who

2:09 occurring right now Kim Manis who used to be I guess one of the head leaders of the powerbi group which is now moved up a bit more to product management of I think most things fabric related now but there is a retirement happening not for Kim but for powerbi premium SKS so the powerbi premium per capacity pricing has been announced that it will be eventually removed in the year 2025 so you have some time to get out of it but they’re deprecating it they’re

2:40 it but they’re deprecating it they’re getting rid of the P skes which Jan 125 is the the cut off right so if you have any existing agreements EA agreements that and before then you can renew yep but if they land afterwards start start planning there there’s some there’s some sticky stuff to figure out in there sometimes and this from a from a purchasing agreement standpoint It’s it’s you’re you’re purchasing mean it’s it’s you’re you’re purchasing P SKS from the Microsoft 365 store

3:12 P SKS from the Microsoft 365 store you’re purchasing the F SKS from Azure other than that all the features you need from the P skes are available to you in the FCS there is no there is no difference there in in function or functionality if anything you’re getting more more functionality with the sqs then you will with the p SKS cuz I think my opinion here microsof is going to continue investing in those fqs and keep making them more featured and not investing all those same features in the P skes so that’ll be

3:42 features in the P skes so that’ll be interesting what’s crazy is new customers will not be able to purchase a powerbi premium capacity July 1 this year so they’re deprecating it but in just a few months you can’t even buy premium premium capacity that’s going to be new customers will not be able to yeah you’re right it is not far away what’s interesting to me it strikes me is interesting and that’s why I say like man this could be sticky for existing customers is because with a

4:14 for existing customers is because with a lot of the EA agreements those are done through third parties a lot of the time yeah like there are like third parties that have like figured out that Microsoft licensing is not so easy if we can do that for customers they may list bundle with us this rips that out of there yeah so I don’t I don’t know what the impact of that is going to be but I I know that I’ve definitely used those third parties in the past and this would be timing that right EA agreement

4:46 would be timing that right EA agreement in with assuming responsibility for this license for yourself and that also may change where Finance like pulls from right like like what what budget that needs to come from which which will be interesting to work through because I’ll have to work through it too yeah and other things here too some other point here yeah some other things to note here

5:17 here yeah some other things to note here is the in so it goes to the article here and it talks a little bit about the other different SKS that are also being affected so even though we’re talking about the P SKS I believe the A and the EM SKS are also going to be somewhat affected here as well it’s not very clearly called out in the article but it starts talking about there’s embedded capacity licensing they do talk about that a little bit in the premium per user so premium per user is not going away premium per user is not changing those things are still the same but I have suspicion based on what I read here in the article it looks to me like okay

5:48 in the article it looks to me like okay the P skew is done and because I can embed things down to lower F SKS all F skes allow for embedding either internal or external for your customers and because of that there’s no in my opinion there’s no need now for an A and an emew it’s just over complicating the licensing pieces yeah disappear yeah but if so I want to be really clear that is it does not talk about a yet it doesn’t it doesn’t a link to another article

6:19 it doesn’t a link to another article very references it it references it but it doesn’t say there’s a deprecation path right no they haven’t said it’s deprecated but I I’m you is again this is purely Michael speculating at this point so I’m just going to be very clear about that this is a speculation piece if the fscq you get does all the things the ASU does and you can go down smaller in size yeah as as again as an isv who’s using this solution today currently I don’t see any reason why I’d even need to go buy an A or an em SK so

6:49 even need to go buy an A or an em SK so if I’m looking again if I’m a purchasing department I’m purely looking at this from a oh which skew do I I purchase fa or EMS I get more things with the F skew I can go down smaller in the fq I’m going to choose that over the a so I think this is they may not be killing it but they may be trying to incentivize people to use the new skew and then over time it just eventually just Withers out and doesn’t be used anymore and they didn’t mention premium per user at all in this too yeah they did yeah no

7:22 did yeah no chesties impact RBI licensing last paragraph no changing okay so PPU stays the same so what’s interesting to me though I is I wonder if that was intentional or just like yeah we’re not going to push on the a quite yet because if you like those are embedded SKS I you have entire production facing reports that are embedded in applications I would agree with that and this would be like this is a shortterm abrupt announcement July you can’t buy it anymore right like at end of year which

7:52 anymore right like at end of year which is what six and some months six and change away from the end of the year you have to go through Cycles just to ensure that okay I’m going to I’m going to move all my Dev on Capa on to new fsq capacity everything’s running as assumed then we have a production kind assumed then we have a production pull pushover and just make sure that of pull pushover and just make sure that everything’s running ni like and I’m not it could be easy right I don’t know that them leaving it out or not pushing that button right away is because of that but production deployments you get

8:23 production deployments you get a little bit more handsy about like I don’t know focused on those things but I would agree with you from a customer perspective outside of the two things I mentioned with how licensing is managed with external parties Andor where financing pulls it from the flexibility that the fq provides I’m I’m super I’m stoked about like that was we talked about the peace cube a long time ago and it was just a bear because like man like why why would

8:55 bear because like man like why why would we not have something like the asq or the E like yeah the AQ that we could control that we could burst up and down that we could do all these things with and now it’s here right so now like taking that P capacity now it’s all managed in the same spot I I personally am I’m way way okay and fine with u migrating on to FC agree with that one so I think this is a major announcement the only thing really major to point out here is hey

9:25 really major to point out here is hey things are changing pay attention it’s basically what we’re trying to say here is like you need to you need to know what pricing you have what are you working on right now currently and go talk to your representatives go talk to your Consultants go talk to someone who knows what’s going on here because they will have to be investing in this anyway for you so make sure you reach out ask them for help because there is also some things here as well a p skew is $5, 000 if you bought the equivalent f64 directly from Azure it’s going to be $88, 000 so the price is more unless you

9:56 $88, 000 so the price is more unless you add the reserve pricing so there’s a discount given for committing to longer periods of time on those various SKS and so you have to incorporate Reserve pricing and then the price of the FCU again an f64 I think in the US goes down to about like 5, 040 bucks it’s like $40 more it’s like yeah why wouldn’t you do that so again just make sure you have people who are pricing things appropriate for you you can move to the new SKS without much impact on price or cost and you get more

10:27 on price or cost and you get more features and all the new features that are coming out through fabric which are Azure only features that are coming like I think there’s a they mentioned in the article there’s a managed instance managed not managed there’s a managed Resource Group here it’s talking about trusted sorry trusted workspaces in in one L shortcuts so there’s are some specific fabric features that are you you’re going to get and you get a managed private endpoint for spark these are things that are coming out that you can use in these new SKS I I think in The Other Well to

10:58 new SKS I I think in The Other Well to your point right this this they they are now putting these under the maure Microsoft Azure consumption commitments right like that’s where you get your discounts with Microsoft so leverage those right so the fsq is falling under those that’s that’s really good news for a lot of customers and to to your point Mike it can reduce the cost from P into F which is a good thing and equivalency wise like there’s no loss here it’s the same stuff

11:28 there’s no loss here it’s the same stuff under the hood and and More in terms of like what the capacity can support versus the peak capacity so that’s one of our first main articles here let’s take on the next one here so Tommy’s favorite topic here I’ll let Tommy do this next one yeah I wasn’t sure if we wanted to skip it or not but of course hey guess what improved PowerPoint added or powerbi add in for PowerPoint this is a new idea where we can actually take a snapshot of the powerbi report so if you

12:00 snapshot of the powerbi report so if you ever use a powerbi plugin for PowerPoint it basically save the state of the report that you’re in once you go to the slideshow like a personal bookmark however anyone would be able to select it and interact with that said report there’s a new feature or new control where you can actually say you control where you can actually say what make it a snapshot so it know what make it a snapshot so it basically behaves as an image so for example if I’m sharing this PowerPoint and I have a bunch of powerbi VIs Tools in here or that using the plugin

12:31 Tools in here or that using the plugin and I just want it to be static at least for the presentation or what people are seeing we can now save that View mode that’s pretty big because we we’ve had is it is it pretty big well it’s not as big as the fabric thing but I think it’s okay I’m I’m just teasing I’m just teasing because it’s in PowerPoint I’m like for one I know no one cares about the no one cares about power point I’m sorry yes so if it doesn’t say spark or

13:01 sorry yes so if it doesn’t say spark or p pandas then I don’t care so if it says anything about PowerPoint I’m not as thrilled just yeah but I think for business users the be the ability to save the state of that report so no one can touch it so to speak I’ve gotten it just right makes it a little easier to interact with and to make sure that nothing modifies it feels like they’re continually this is this has been a continual theme here for the last couple months now they’ve been slowly adding more features trying to

13:32 slowly adding more features trying to make PowerPoint more seamless with with powerb powerb ports the part of this that I really struggle with is like you powerbi report takes the context of a user who the user is logged in as that context is used to render the report it’s it’s a security mechanism and PowerPoint slides are notorious for I can send them anywhere I want I can give them I can put an image in there of whatever I need to and it just gets sent around shared however you want to share the PowerPoint slide it that doesn’t to me like the security model of parbi and PowerPoint just

14:03 model of parbi and PowerPoint just doesn’t fit very well together and I get it but I don’t know I just I don’t love RBI inside PowerPoints I realize people want to do it and it needs to be there I get it and point I’m just not a fan there are three different controls there’s live view which is what we’re used to there’s this idea called snapshot which only people have access to the report can view it and then you can create a public snapshot which actually creates an image and anyone can view that image so just be cautious if you’re sharing this with a lot of people

14:33 you’re sharing this with a lot of people if you make it public snapshot it how is public how is public SN snapshot agreeable to any organization what no no no well listen listen the way I’m reading this is the the snapshot still requires that the user have access to the report report right not in public snapshot anyone just a normal a normal snapshot sure so public meaning anybody in the org

15:04 public meaning anybody in the org anybody who used the PowerPoint like my guess is this comes from like if you think about the audience of PowerPoint it’s not powerbi users usually right it PowerPoint is being used as a reporting page snap like my wife does this all the time she’s in she she does forecasting she spends her life in powerbi reports looking at how you how which is hilarious hilarious given

15:36 know which is hilarious hilarious given given the past of like ah power like and her new job she took over a year ago was like all powered that’s all every time I walk in her office that’s what she’s doing and what she does is she snapshot like she takes a snippet and Snips the the the the reports out of the PowerPoint and puts them in a slide deck because this is how like they want to communicate into to organizational leaders or to show different things and I think the feedback within the

16:07 I think the feedback within the loop here related to the experience of users trying to embed reporting in PowerPoint is such that it’s probably a pain because it’s like oh man like so and so after the the presentation couldn’t see the report anymore because they weren’t logged in and they didn’t have permissions and like yeah what kind have permissions and like yeah what mess would that be of mess would that be so from the public snapshot perspective no it’s not public to the world it’s public to the internal organization those who have access to the pre

16:37 those who have access to the pre PowerPoint so if they want to see the slide retroactively like this makes a ton of sense to me plus it removes that like the Fear Factor for like I’m presenting I gotta stuff all in place and then I get to my like my go-to slide where I’m pulling up my report and the report all different refresh or or it’s like problems logging in or it’s the screen that like ah crap I forgot to log in and I need to or whatever the

17:07 log in and I need to or whatever the case it removes that and in that part I I really like this I think it’s a good Improvement to the solution of like trying to leverage powerbi as the reporting screen shots that you’re going to use to reinforce a point or put in a PowerPoint slide and like removing that connection issue stuff makes it makes it more useful in the tool i’ agree with

17:37 agree with that yeah and I think this is this is what my point was earlier was they’re doing a better job of refining The Experience they’re making it easier they’re trying to sand off those rough

17:47 they’re trying to sand off those rough edges so that it is to your point set like it’s not as rough getting into the report and you actually want you to use it’s just not it Just again it just it’s not built for slot for power points and slides this is just a good helpful way of getting there so anyways not not loving it it is what it is it’s because let’s move on Do’s here’s a Rand here’s a random question like when you’re engaging with new clients do you when you’re presenting anything do you ever use

18:17 presenting anything do you ever use PowerPoint no never you you use powerbi reports I use whiteboard experiences so I use Miro which is one of my favorite tools to use right now with with clients I’ve got a nice little pattern that I use I have all the icons I need in there I’ve got it prepared so if I’m ever talking to clients about things like that I’m I’m presenting things there solely in that I don’t use PowerPoint slides anymore I’ve the class that I run for adoption governance I’ve abandoned all PowerPoint slides yeah like but that’s already when you’re in

18:47 like but that’s already when you’re in the door like nobody’s got a hey Mike I’d like you to present to this this executive team and like show us what what you’re going to do for us yep I’m not even using I’m not using slides I’m I’m building it in other things I hate PowerPoint so much it’s it’s such a stinking time suck for me I just it’s so useless wow yeah I I I I personally don’t agree with you but hey if you found if you’ve down found mechanisms outside to present ideas thoughts and

19:19 outside to present ideas thoughts and where you’re going to go with things it’s cool and I think the neat part about what the way I present things now is using these new newer more white boardy esque typee tools I can prepare all of my thoughts as screens essentially but usually there’s questions along the way around what about this and in our situation we don’t have that and here we have so we we literally take from that you like imagine taking a PowerPoint slide where you have things or ideas or concepts you’re trying to convey and then you go immediately into the next deeper level

19:49 immediately into the next deeper level and say okay let’s explore what you’re talking about and you can literally rearrange the icons in the groups of things and then you add bubbles or nuggets or diagram is they in real time with them and say well here’s what you’re saying you’re saying I heard you say this this is what we’re now talking about now this is how you design you’re almost diagramming right out of the gate almost right away and I think that adds it’s I’ll say this too I do a lot less sales pitching like there’s there’s not a lot of sales pitching that I do it’s it’s more about most of my workload

20:19 it’s it’s more about most of my workload is get in we got problems figure stuff out I need architectural diagrams oh so you’re you’re past that I’m already past that yeah okay well you’re you being past that makes a ton of sense because like then you’re instantly in almost conceptual model mode yeah correct where you’re like here’s all the here’s the pieces here’s how we’re going to approach this y y y as opposed to show us who are show us you actually yeah yeah yeah it’s because they’re I’m on

20:49 yeah yeah it’s because they’re I’m on the podcast I’m like do you have a podcast with over 300 episodes no okay then then we’re just going to move forward maybe I’m in the wrong business here we don’t we don’t need slides we don’t need slides anymore we’re done with those so it it is it is good I like this is yeah this is some people are going to enjoy this feature just not me well if you didn’t like this one do I have one right down your alley bridging fabric L lake houses Delta change data feed for seamless ETL this now we’re

21:21 feed for seamless ETL this now we’re talking yeah exactly now we’re talking I’m happy now it’s it’s great this is a change data feed so in in certain systems not all systems I believe if I read this article correctly the change data feed is every time you update or delete or make a record adjustment systems will capture that and send that as a fe could send that messaging somewhere as a feed hey I updated record 10 hey we added record 11 record 11 was updated all right Record 5 was deleted

21:53 updated all right Record 5 was deleted so all of those individual commands make up what is the current state of that table so table so I I think that’s that’s technically I think what’s happening there but I don’t know I think I think this makes sense I think people are going to find this useful it it heavily depends on can you trust your Source system or does your Source system correctly spit out the right information I’m really amazed how many updates the Microsoft team is coming on I have no idea how hard this is to

22:23 I have no idea how hard this is to implement but every month they are coming out with some it seems like either major feature that they’re integrating that was previously available in synaps or something new they are doing that t this is way more updates than the powerbi back in the day on a monthly basis why do you think that is because they’re spending a lot of money to get this working tell me is this the web no what how how many services are in

22:57 web no what how how many services are in fabric fabric yeah they’ve pulled in a lot of other teams seven to nine Services all of these services are the independent teams that were building those services so the fact that like all of these are getting integrated and we’re seeing an absolute torrent of feature updates where those independent Services already have features that don’t work yet in Fabric and now are working in fabric yeah it it’s nine times the

23:28 fabric yeah it it’s nine times the people right so like like of course there’s more updates than there were with just the powerbi team yeah they didn’t take the powerbi team and say we’re just going to like divide you right I think I think what they did is they divided the powerbi team and then they added a bunch of other like as your data Factory or sorry ADF there’s team members from now on that probably working on things there’s probably team members now working on the Spark engine there’s a whole team there like that they had they Microsoft already had a Spark engine somewhere else it was in synaps so probably

23:59 else it was in synaps so probably pulling team members probibly from there as well so like yeah it’s it feels like they’re really centralizing around the theme of powerbi and this is a truly platform as a system now and all the teams yeah fabric is now a platform as a separate system and now they’re really trying to say let’s pull all the teams in and make a platform as opposed to here’s a bunch of data Engineering Services that you could use independently I think it makes sense I like it well it’s I think it makes sense too it makes for some really long blog articles so well this one in

24:29 articles so well this one in particularly this this this blog article is quite long because it’s it’s got a lot of like code samples and showing some things in notebooks and so really like this one from that standpoint from a technical side but anyway it’s just nice to know that this is this is out and available now I do think you you the interesting thing to me and I think we mentioned this in a previous conversation was that having intro each of these individual tools I think you had your experts in

25:00 tools I think you had your experts in but if you weren’t using them you would never know right so even this change data capture being introduced into fabric I I really enjoy even though some of these articles are really long or or announcements the fact that it’s bringing forth more features that you may not have been aware of in those other tools had you not used them and that is really powerful in fabric because you can leverage them even if you are a a hardcore sequel warehouse person right agree oh wow lak house this

25:30 person right agree oh wow lak house this thing has this thing I’m gonna oh what am I going to do go connect to the same tables that are that I’m like that I built in my SQL Warehouse right over here it’s the same object all I have to do is introduce this new benefit or a new ETL pattern or new ML on top of that table and now it’s part of my ETL pipeline that’s that’s huge and I think that’s going to accelerate as people start to understand just the different dynamics that this in

26:01 different dynamics that this in inclusive environment of all of these different tools and Technologies on top of Delta like really really unlocks even further capabilities of of ETL teams and data in general that’s a great segue oh go ahead Donald makes a point here around ADF is deadish prettu your fabic pipelines are the future and now mainly in the present usage here what are your feelings on asro data Factory do you feel like that’s something that’s gone by the wayside and it’s being fully

26:32 gone by the wayside and it’s being fully replaced or or could be fully replaced by what pipelines are doing inside fabric I think it depends

26:41 fabric I think it depends on the like I I think it depends on two things the more so like data sources and how how they start to treat those in fabric because if they make it easy to cons like connect to and pull data in in whatever form yeah like you don’t need an independent system right it’s the same with all the other systems though right like there there’s a lot to be excited about I’ll say

27:11 to be excited about I’ll say that but it’s just it just depends on how Microsoft treats those data sources and how fast we can start to utilize the the information well that’s an excellent segue two other major updates about the data source is making it easier browse Azure Resources with get data where we can actually make it a lot easier to connect to synapse data L Gen 2 and as Azure blobs there’s a better UI rather than focusing all on getting the

27:42 rather than focusing all on getting the connection string there’s always a pain in the butt but now the user interface is going to be a lot more improved to make it discoverable along with that we also get bring fabric louses to dataverse which is also another neat thing where the improved the link between dataverse and fabric continues to evolve so let me get that article so I’m interested in the one here around the connecting things in Azure I think that’s actually a really

28:12 Azure I think that’s actually a really relevant this is something that should have been out a while ago from a connector standpoint you should be able to go here’s a blob store here’s Azure based data things go connect to them make it easy for me like that’s that’s very I think this one’s very helpful really enjoyed that one the data verse is nothing to sneeze at either just for the sake that we know the pain it is to try to analyze CRM based data from Dynamics or from the data verse but now we can push that into a Lakehouse so to me there’s a lot of

28:45 a Lakehouse so to me there’s a lot of I would call this underlying or unattended benefits of this that we haven’t thought of because it’s always been so hard to utilize the data verse from a reporting point of view it’s not meant to be but we have really have a lot of good information usually a lot of organizations have true things dataverse Power Platform so all is basically the upgrade to Dynamics or yes so the interesting thing about the data verse thing is this is in this feature they’re talking about here they’re looking at it and they’re saying

29:15 they’re looking at it and they’re saying hey you can create a new shortcut so you’re basically shortcutting to where the data verse data lives so I guess that means since it’s a shortcut it’s always looking at the freshest data coming from that resource potentially because it’s a shortcut interesting which article are you guys talking about I just sent it in the chat and his in te oh look at that yeah you’re you’re playing on the Fly games thought I had it I had six links

29:45 games thought I had it I had six links you you didn’t have it in the link list Tommy so got it please refer to it’s there Now Yep this is this is an interesting feature and I’m pretty pleased that this is here I think this is going to remove some more friction from those data verse customers that are already trying to think about and leverage this data we are working on some projects right now around data verse and yeah it’s it’s got a little bit of Hiccup in it but it’s getting smoother and smoother the more you move towards fabric so I think it’s getting better and better as as they build this so this is to me this is just a rounding

30:15 so this is to me this is just a rounding out feature enhancement of this and I do I do like this so there’s a there’s a concept of I like going in data verse grabbing the SQL analytics endpoint so the shortcuts there I can see the table I can see the data in it and then I can write SQL against it and then do what I want with the data after the sequel so if I want to join tables I want to clean stuff out that makes a lot of sense to me because now I can go see those tables and bring them in so this is I think this is going to be really impactful I I like this feature a lot actually yeah I

30:45 like this feature a lot actually yeah I would agree and this also dovetails though into Donald’s comment about ADF right more more things like this shortcuts where I can connect to data verse or other objects where my data sits there and I don’t have to copy it right through a pro because ADF like 90% of everything that we’re doing right out of the gate is what copying data copy data copy data into our Lake and

31:15 copy data copy data into our Lake and with a shortcut here right data sits in its existing state so all you’re doing is figuring out how do you have to pull it or or I should say transform for a version in your lake or the shortcut and that that is something that I I think is is really cool excellent or powerful not just cool yeah I would agree very powerful with that I okay I think we’ve definitely beat up the news quite enough here

31:45 beat up the news quite enough here We’ve almost taken half the time here just talking through there was so much to go over it’s absolutely incredible how many things were occurring here on the new side of things so let’s maybe transition over to our main topic here a little bit and you said this is a mailbag I guess I should kick this over to Seth here and we should have mailbag Seth read the question out for us so we can talk about the question today I’m I’m gonna I’m gonna read a comment first because it makes me feel good all right yeah so apologies for

32:16 good all right yeah so apologies for the name the name Juni says hey guys I started listening to you guys a few weeks back and landed job working around powerbi thank you so much for all the knowledge you guys are sharing it opens my eyes to a lot of things well thank you for listening that is great news and congratulations on the new job and we in some way shape or form helped out with that our our word of advice as you start your new job is stay away from PowerPoint and powerbi report and just

32:47 PowerPoint and powerbi report and just don’t say you learned your skills from the the podcast yeah and if if you if you yeah if it doesn’t go well you didn’t hear about us or the podcast it wasn’t us us so best of wishes on your new job very happy that you got the the position keep up the good work and hope you can hope the podcast keeps putting you in the right direction around things that are interesting and relevant for your work so this might maybe the next topic rest of today will be a part of that as well on to the

33:17 that as well on to the mailbag question of the day is can you talk more about how different powerbi solutions are shared for seamless user experience particularly I am interested in knowing how I can use my reporting as a product/service for analytic reports that we have created for external users in Brackets clients clients all right so this is talking about embedding your reports for external users well

33:47 external users well how probably but that’s not the only way right that’s not the only way it didn’t I don’t think he so so have at it so there are so out of the box Microsoft does provide you the ability to add guests or guest users into your powerbi tenant which allows you to bring external people into your ecosystem ecosystem I I’m going to say that comes with some challenges right out of the gate

34:18 some challenges right out of the gate you need licensing for them they need to be in your tenant your active directory will actually have to absorb those users into your active directory so it’s at the end of the day someone needs to be authenticated to figure out who you are and what you’re doing inside that tenant so a lot of times some companies have policies around this actually I find more more companies than less companies have a lot of policies around this where they are saying hey we’re not going to let external users show up and be we don’t want them in our

34:48 show up and be we don’t want them in our active directory tenent as a guest even if they are guest they have limited access there’s a there’s potentially a either it’s clouding the the the the there’s there’s too much in the enter ID space they want to keep it clean like that’s that should be for internal employees only but that is a possibility you can you can pay for users to have that experience so they can go into your power attendant and get access to reports have you guys used either any of this with clients so far have you found good success with this today so I was thinking about all the

35:20 today so I was thinking about all the different cases of doing external sharing both embedded to just the B2B access guest users and I think if you had one of those business diagrams where easy to hard and feature set I think

35:35 easy to hard and feature set I think that sharing the individual reports or sharing content with guest users while pretty straightforward as long as it is okay with it doesn’t scale but it does it is pretty simple they simply act as other users and we have used that when it’s a small group of users that need access their experience is not a little different that you’re actually in the other your organization’s domain so it’s a separate URL you can’t get to

36:05 it’s a separate URL you can’t get to the reports from your own tenant so Mike let’s say you shared with me a report from your tenant I can’t go in my powerbi and find your reports I can find this Mantic models but I actually have to go to a specific URL so it’s not really the best experience but it is the most straightforward and we’ve done it a ton but then that it ramps up in terms of making the feature Set more interactive and better from the difficulty and the actual PRX when it

36:36 difficulty and the actual PRX when it comes to embedding when it comes to utilizing more features in entra it’s not active directory anymore so I’m just going to start changing that name too but there’s a lot more configuration that you need to utilize your it team with it’s not something you can do on your own so yeah we’ve used it the individual guest access you B2B users but when it comes to embedding that’s I but when it comes to embedding that’s Seth a ton about this Mike mean Seth a ton about this Mike you got an amazing application that

37:06 you got an amazing application that allows easily which I’m amazed that something like that’s not already out there oh there’s there’s a number of companies out there doing full isv embedded accelerator Solutions now so that’s out there goad Seth you’re gonna you’re going to talk for a lot I I was just going to make a comment on Tommy’s thing real quick go ahead the biggest barrier I see to doing doing embedded with powerbi. com is the licensing most companies don’t want to pay $10 per user to at least to show up

37:36 pay $10 per user to at least to show up and get things out of powerbi. com that’s the to me that’s the main hurdle that I observe from companies doing that we’re we’re talking about the two scenarios where essentially either you’re sharing externally and there’s an experience there or bringing users within your into your domain with a domain account like you’re saying you’re setting them up as you up as Tomia powerb tips and but they’re

38:06 know Tomia powerb tips and but they’re an external user that’s the second scenario so they have a better user experience yeah you’d have to create a whole account I can utilize my PBI Mike can share that with me which is seamless I wouldn’t be a new user it would be add an existing you’re not creating a new account you’re creating a guest account which is their email address at your domain so it’s like Tommy’s full email address M at a different domain’s name at parb tips. com

38:38 different domain’s name at parb tips. com so it’s basically making an entire account that is unique to that user even though you’re logging in from a different tenant so it it does allow you to have other tenant IDs but you still have to bring in enough of that user to bring them into your tenant as a guest and that guest user has the same powerbi experience it it will have the powerbi. com experience like the same one if you go to app. powerbi. com except you need to have a license for them so as long as you give them a pro

39:08 them so as long as you give them a pro user license you can give them access to a workspace you can have them log into the RBI tenant and then they could see their apps they’ve been published to like all the power. com things just work for them so they they can be added in there you could also again if you don’t want to pay that licensing I believe you could also do the same thing at a f64 level so at f64 you get that experience by paying for the f64 and then you get all the powerbi. com experience go here here’s all the apps that you can go use

39:39 here’s all the apps that you can go use again to Tommy’s point the only way to get people in easily there is there’s a lot of confusion around well Michael has his tenant Tommy has his tenant how do I know which power. com to log into it’s more difficult getting them to the right URL that’s that’s tricky but then again the other caveat if you utilize the guest user I bring my own license so I’ve never had that work correctly I don’t know why that do work I’ve never had I’ve never had it work dude we had so many situations with power apps that people needed access were like do you have a license no do you have a license

40:10 have a license no do you have a license it’s worked for us I’ve I’ve never had an issue with that yeah I’ve never been a it’s supposed to work like if your tenant hasn’t a license and you show up it should just work but I’ve I’ve had all kinds of issues with things getting blocked maybe I haven’t tested it most thoroughly enough it may work for some people but I have not had very good much success with that it’s just been too confusing to get set up correctly so I I think in the past we’ve we’ve test and this was a while ago we tested pretty hard hard how to the the other scenario here which is maybe not an external customer it’s where you

40:41 not an external customer it’s where you have multiple tenants in the same company right and I want a singular shared powerbi experience nah can’t have it right so that the one that’s super painful is just keeping external users are sharing any content with them because yeah like to Tommy to your earlier Point sharing a URL especially if they have their own powerbi environment and that’s how they have to interact with your reports is a really poor experience right I’m not especially if

41:12 experience right I’m not especially if if it’s supposed to be built into a solution where you have 10 reports because you’re a customer oh yeah well those are just 10 links and there’s not a location that you can go to navigate to those Etc I can honestly say I don’t think we’ve I don’t think I really like got deep into the guest account and per licensing to try to create the same experience especially not in like the tenant thing because I was trying to like consolidate into a single experience yeah and that would

41:43 single experience yeah and that would just keep two different experiences I’d have to go to two different powerbi which which again I would argue that that’s not a deal either like it’s it isn’t it isn’t especially when people are you’re you’re training and teaching people new things saying like well it is powerbi but that’s you have to go over here for that one like business they’re not g to be like yeah make that happen I have found any company that has multiple PBI tenants so this is this is like your your domain names right so if there’s

42:14 your domain names right so if there’s like companies that have had merges anytime I’ve seen companies with multiple tenants this gets really confusing yeah and this gets really difficult for this to work so all all of this is like let’s say this this is this is like level one this is the easy button for getting people access to reports you do have to make some compromises around licensing you also have to make some compromises around letting guest users into your environment there’s also a whole bunch of a handful of admin settings you need to turn on for guest users to do things inside your parb environment I honestly

42:45 inside your parb environment I honestly in my opinion if you’re just trying to share reports with people I don’t really love that love that experience then beyond that so moving moving forward from that one is then you have the custom embedded Solutions so now you can then make a isv type solution and you can embed your reports into a web application and then you have to build a lot of functionality or feature sets that come to your embedded application that mimic a lot of the behaviors from power. com and that’s where you get so what this does is it

43:16 where you get so what this does is it starts pulling back the veil of like customization and design and all the things you want to do from embedding that gives you the capability of doing whatever you think of what whatever you can dream of you can now do all these extra things that go along with with an application and that’s my my opinion here it’s more work for the developers I have done this work probably 14 or 15 embedded projects at this point I’m very comfortable with it but for many organizations this is a very large lift to get them to do this

43:47 very large lift to get them to do this it’s a large lift so for if if this question comes from hey I’m a bi person and I need to solve this customer facing solution correct buck this is not the first either we’re talking we’re talking like in order to make that happen like I hope you have a developer you one yes right because otherwise you’re in for a long road of trying to figure out how to go build an application and have your reports plugged in here on the flip

44:18 on the flip side if you have developers and you have a custom app experience the embedded solution can can do do a lot right I I

44:29 solution can can do do a lot right I I currently have an embedded solution in our organization that works seamlessly with the application itself so it’s doing things that the application has an idea of a whole bunch of context of data that doesn’t live in the model and we’re messaging back and forth between the model and what the application is doing and and there are some really cool experiences you can build but it it is time you it’s def time like you’re going to have to develop an experience where powerbi is

45:01 develop an experience where powerbi is communicating back and forth with the application in a really seamless way and that is not easy to do and N impossible and not even really an option if you’re just a bi person correct and I’d also argue this around this embedded solution right what happens you embedded solution right what happens in the pivate atcom service there’s know in the pivate atcom service there’s a lot of management of users and bookmarks and data and all these other things that are helping you use experience so there’s there’s two main embedded experience there’s the app owns data and then there is the user owns

45:32 data and then there is the user owns data experience and so the one that I like the most is the app owns the data experience it gives you the most amount of flexibility of control around Road level security the app can do a lot more things you can you can do pre-filtering for the app before the report shows up and inside the report Pages there’s a whole bunch of more things you have to do however a lot of the power. com stuff just comes as apis and you have to build your own experience on what you think is the best for the reporting surface area so being that said that’s where I spent most of my time I’ve spent most of

46:02 spent most of my time I’ve spent most of my time just focusing on the embedded experience and have I have because of this I have built a solution that actually accelerates you beyond like hey you need you need embedding great you can and buy betting for me on a per user basis right basically a embedded as a service or you can go buy an application that has all that information in it so there’s there’s a lot of really good Solutions out there that do that already and then you just can pick the features that you need in the application to to get those features

46:32 application to to get those features directly for your so I want to lean into here for a second yeah you’re you’re saying you and or potentially other third parties have Easy Button Solutions forre ey people to embed their or get their reports into an embedded scenario correct yes and and that’s that’s the think I think that’s the secret sauce here right I’ve I’ve worked on teams there’s obviously a lot of open Whit space between the powerbi solution and what people need you’re saying you and others have filled that need with

47:04 and others have filled that need with the tooling that you have correct and well it’s not I’m I’m calling it out because like yes I’m aware of it but at the same time like if you’re a bi person there’s there’s a cost here correct right you’re not going to get a freebie like there’s no freebie solution to build an external facing powerbi solution that is a good one agree right so I’m looking at Tommy’s face as he’s like like if you actually look at the question that was asked in the mailbag

47:34 question that was asked in the mailbag talk about all the different powerbi solutions for a seamless user experience I really don’t think there’s a really TR truly a seamless one and a fully integrated one it’s fine for sharing a few reports with external users but I disagree I think the embedded experience way more than that yeah I’m gonna living from the the I’m saying keeping the same theme of powerbi service yeah you can build anything oh no we’re I’m talking

48:05 build anything oh no we’re I’m talking like seamless experience of like your application like you provide deep links you’re going into other parts of your application like you can embed a single like well I’ll say it this way the theme generator that we’ve built at themes. parb tips is really integrated we have this entire web app building experience and you don’t even know where the web app begins and where powerbi begins it is so well integrated you click on different visuals different visuals pop up you stylize them they immediately change in front of your eyes like it doesn’t honestly it doesn’t even look like parbi service so the the

48:37 like parbi service so the the amount again to get to that level though you really need to know the apis you really need to know what you’re doing powerbi to get to that level so from that standpoint I think really confident that you can highly stylize The Experience where you can blur the line so much between again it’s more about your application and then giving the people what they want in the reports now you have the control to actually build what users need which is look use my application my whatever I’ve built when by the way I’m going to deeply integrate

49:07 by the way I’m going to deeply integrate key pieces of data around the entire application all over the place so I think I think that is more relevant and you just have to be very meticulous around playing all that out because there’s a lot you again this is not to your point Seth a developer show at this one they’re not this is not their solution this is this is is an app developer working with someone who knows all the apis and how to make everything work I have personally experienced four to six months of external teams trying to develop this on their own I

49:38 trying to develop this on their own I even heard stories of going 9 to 12 months just to get one of these things off the ground yeah like enough that people can use it so ABS I I’ve I’ve lived this as well it’s true there are teams of people so I this listen can can you share content outside of powerbi yes yes you can can you create a a seamless fantastic customer experience with your reports for for free not that I’m aware of right so your

50:08 free not that I’m aware of right so your your your routes are either you get in touch with a developer and you have a lot of time to build your solution which is entirely you now own the building of that solution for your customer or you pick solutions that already pre-formed that you can plug into into and it sounds like there are well I’m familiar there are some really great experiences but they come out of cost but at the same time like that would be something that you’re transferring to the customer in part

50:39 transferring to the customer in part of that solution hopefully I’d like to think of like I’d like to think of this as like you’re selling data and analytics to your customers as like here’s an opportunity this is this is an upsale for you Mr customer we again one of these things I think that’s really important here is just understand like you’re making reports you’ve spent so much time to doing that you’ve made the reports you’ve made the data sets you’re getting them refreshing you’re doing all this engineering work to get the stuff where your internal team can use it you should be thinking about this like fairly soon after you get that up and running once you have your internals

51:09 running once you have your internals running on powerbi this should be a very clear and easy stepping stone to go from there start thinking about how do I then do the same thing for my customers and I think embedded is that experience I think it’s I think it’s a really good one and you got to really plug in with the people who know what’s going on so you can actually get that bridge experience you want all right I think this is a great question I hope that touches on a couple things there’s internal systems that do that and you can do powerbi embedded through custom web apps which is a lot harder I know we’re running out of time people got to run and go do meetings and stuff today so we do

51:41 meetings and stuff today so we do thank you very much for your time I hope you enjoyed today’s topic we had a lot of news today a lot of things coming out in the powerbi ecosystem I hope you’re as excited as we are I think this year is going to be a really interesting year for fabric I think we’re going to see a lot of maturing of the product which makes you really excited to see where they’re going to take the product now so very excited for that part our only ask is if you like this podcast if you enjoyed what you were hearing here and learned something new we really appreciate it please share this with somebody else let’s share it with someone else let them know that you are enjoying the podcast and that you’re

52:11 enjoying the podcast and that you’re getting some value out of it with that Tommy where else can you hear about the podcast you can find us on Apple Spotify or where really wherever get your podcasts make sure to subscribe and leave a rating it helps us out a ton do you have a question idea or a topic that you want us to talk about a future episode head over to poweri tips podcast and leave your name please leave your name we don’t know who to think and a great question finally join us live every Tuesday and Thursday 7 or and join the conversation live on all power

52:42 join the conversation live on all power tips social media channels excellent thank you awesome I appreciate you all so much we thank you for your time and we’ll catch you next

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