The most recent feature added in the Power BI service is a great update, which should not be overlooked. You can now share reports and pass the selection of filters and slicers. This ability, which is announced yesterday, open doors to many possibilities. You can now create “report views” for different personas of users. Previously you could only share reports with one single view for the user (if row level security is not enabled of course). In this quick post, you will learn how this new functionality works. To learn more about Power BI, read Power BI from Rookie to Rock Star book.

Sharing with Slicers and Filters

You can go to any report and start simple sharing on it. Basic sharing is just the Share button on top of the report.

Then in the Sharing options, you will see this new functionality. There is a new option to choose: Share report with current filters and slicers.

If you select a set of slicers and filters and then use this option, then the report passes the filtering. The passed filtering will not act like a security. It means the user will still see other parts of the data in the report, but the default selection would be the one that the report is shared based on it. The screenshot below shows an example of a report page, that I have selected some slicers and then shared it.

At the time of sharing, I selected the “share report with current filters and slicers” option.

The user will receive an email that the report is shared with him with a link to the report. the link will get the user to the report with the same selection of slicers and filters as the default values.

Behind the Scene

The shared report in this way is using the Bookmark feature of Power BI to produce a bookmark link. If you look at the link sent to your email through this way of sharing, you will notice a new part in it.

https://app.powerbi.com/MobileRedirect.html?action=OpenReport&reportObjectId=…..&OpenAppFromWindowsPCAndTablet=false&emailSource=ReportInvitation&bookmarkGuid=…..

You can even see this link from the sharing window if you go to Access tab, there is an option to “manage shared report views”;

In the manage shared report views section, you will see all links to the shared report views you have created, and you can control it from there.

Tips to Consider

Sharing reports with slicers and filters is a great feature added in Power BI service. With this method, you can create views of your report for different personas of users. However, there are a few tips to consider, which are summarized below;

• You can control the shared report views for each report
• Users have to use the link sent to them through email to see that “report view”. The normal “Shared with Me” section will bring them to the general report configuration.
• This method is not to apply the security, but to set a default view for different users and personas. if you want to implement security, read my blog posts about row level security in Power BI

Do you have some scenarios that you are going to use this feature for? please write in the comment below what scenarios you want to use it for.

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.