How to Resolve Publish to Web Error Message: Contact Your Admin to Enable Embed Code Creation

If you tried the option Publish to Web in Power BI recently, you might have seen the error saying “Contact Your Admin to Enable Embed Code Creation”. In this blog post, I am going to talk about why you see this error message, what is the reason behind it, and how to get it resolved.

What is Publish to Web?

In another blog post, I explained that Publish to Web is a free way of sharing Power BI report with the public. The report shared this way is not secure, and it available to anyone who has access to the link or the embed code generated through this method. Below is an example of how a publish to web report can be seen in a web browser:

If you are sharing confidential data across the organization, I do not recommend this method of sharing at all, and I suggest to check out other methods available. here is a comparison of all other methods of sharing for you. However, if you want to share something for the public, the Publish to Web is a really good option.

Administrator Can Control this Option

One of the options that the Power BI administrator of your tenant can control, is the ability to do Publish to Web or not. Recently, however, the default from this option being enabled for everyone is changed to being disabled for everyone, unless the administrator changes it.

Contact Your Admin to Enable Embed Code Creation

With the default configuration of Admin portal, if you try to use the Publish to Web feature, you will get this message:

The reason is that in the tenant settings, the default option selected for this configuration is to only have it working for the existing codes (means that Power BI reports that have been already using the Publish to Web feature in the past). and not enabled for the new publish to web usages.

Why this Option?

You might ask; “Publish to Web was working fine, why you just changed it?. The reason is that a lot of people use this feature without knowing what it does, and it ends with exposing confidential data to people when it should not. If someone creates a report and has no idea with that Publish to Web is, try it and share it with his/her colleagues using this method, then this is a security breach in the organization’s confidential data. It is definitely better to first inform people about what this option is, and then get them to use it. and that is why this option is by default disabled. The tenant admin can only enable it for a specific group of people, or an entire organization (I won’t recommend this option).

Using Publish to Web Makes the Report and the data of that report publicly available, and not everyone is aware of this! This option by default is now disabled

What to do to Use It?

If you want to use the Publish to Web, then what you should do? First, contact your tenant administrator (if you don’t know who is the tenant administrator, then ask around about the Office 365 administrator). They can enable it for you using this method:

How to Change the Setting?

First, go to admin portal using the tenant administrator account;

Then go to Tenant Settings (only tenant administrator will see this option);

In the tenant settings, you can find the Publish to Web section. If you want this feature to become enabled for new reports, then you should choose the Allow existing and new codes option, and then choose who you want to get this applied to:

Depends on how you want to authorize this option, you have the option to either authorize it to the entire organization (use it carefully), or specific security group, or to everyone except specific security groups.

after applying the change, those authorized users should be able to use the Publish to Web feature simply and easily. Find out about other methods of sharing in Power BI here:

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Reza Rad

Trainer, Consultant, Mentor

Reza Rad is a Microsoft Regional Director, an Author, Trainer, Speaker and Consultant. He has a BSc in Computer engineering; he has more than 20 years’ experience in data analysis, BI, databases, programming, and development mostly on Microsoft technologies. He is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP for 12 continuous years (from 2011 till now) for his dedication in Microsoft BI. Reza is an active blogger and co-founder of RADACAD. Reza is also co-founder and co-organizer of Difinity conference in New Zealand, Power BI Summit, and Data Insight Summit.
Reza is author of more than 14 books on Microsoft Business Intelligence, most of these books are published under Power BI category. Among these are books such as Power BI DAX Simplified, Pro Power BI Architecture, Power BI from Rookie to Rock Star, Power Query books series, Row-Level Security in Power BI and etc.
He is an International Speaker in Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft Business Applications Summit, Data Insight Summit, PASS Summit, SQL Saturday and SQL user groups. And He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer.
Reza’s passion is to help you find the best data solution, he is Data enthusiast.
His articles on different aspects of technologies, especially on MS BI, can be found on his blog: https://radacad.com/blog.