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Welcome to the preview for org apps as items - Power BI workspace apps rebuilt for Fabric as a new item type. With org apps as items, you can create multiple org apps per workspace. And you can manage org apps the way you would any other item type - from creating a new org app, to managing access, to sharing the org app - all the things you find familiar and easy about managing other items, such as reports, are all familiar with org apps as items as well.
Power BI workspace apps are a great way for content creators, like report authors, to craft secure, beautiful, customized data experiences for your colleagues and consumers. With org apps as items, you can create as many org apps as you need to ensure your team is working efficiently. And with org apps you can customize the consumer experience with any theme color, configure navigation, and build unique landing experiences.
The preview for org apps is off by default for tenants. To enable the preview, you must be a Microsoft Fabric administrator. From Settings > Admin portal > Tenant settings a Microsoft Fabric administrator needs to enable the switch entitled Users can discover and create org apps (preview). Administrators can use security group inclusion/exclusion settings to control who can or can't create org apps.
A workspace must be in a specific license mode to create an org app item: trial or Fabric capacity. To configure a workspace:
Users who create an org app are prompted to start a trial when a Microsoft tenant administrator turns on Fabric trials.
Users in the workspace with an admin, member, or contributor (with share permissions)* role can create and manage org app items, although contributors might not have full permissions for managing access on an org app. For more information, see org app access management. Workspace viewers can't create org app items.
See also Contributors and access management and sharing.
With org app items, you can create multiple org apps per workspace.
With org app items, you can package up items from the same workspace and share them with others in your organization who don't have access to the workspace.
Once you create an org app item, you can include Power BI reports, Fabric notebooks, and real-time dashboards in the org app. These items are referred to as included items.
When you give users access to the org app item, at a minimum they gain read access to the included items as well. For Power BI reports in an org app, users gain read access to the semantic models associated with the report. For new org apps in preview, even if a semantic model is in a different workspace users gain access to that model.
If you have a workspace app configured and published, your org app items don't affect how your workspace app works. You can continue to use workspace apps alongside org app items.
Workspace apps are created and managed at the workspace level:
Org app items are created and managed from the New menu and workspace list:
Org app items appear in your workspace list:
From a shared workspace in the right license mode, select New > Org app (preview)
Name your app
Select Add content and select reports and notebooks from your workspace, then select Add to app.
Screenshot of workspace item picker:
You can add more elements to your org app, like links and an overview page that lists everything in your org app. And you can arrange the navigation as you’d like in sections and reordering elements.
Add links to your org app navigation from Add > Link.
Add an overview page to your org app that lists everything added to your org app. Select Add > Overview. You can have one overview page in an org app.
Once the overview page is added, you can add a custom header by selecting Add header.
You can enter a header title, body, and choose to apply the org app theme color as the header’s background color.
Only one overview page can be added to an org app:
Organize your navigation by adding sections from Add > Section and naming the section.
Move elements to a section by selecting ... > Move to section.
To change how elements show up in your org app navigation, you can rename any element added to your org app by hovering over an element added to your app and selecting ... > Rename.
To change the order of elements in your app navigation, you can reorder elements by selecting ... > and then Move up or Move down.
The first element in your navigation is the landing experience for your org app.
From Settings you can change the name, description, and endorsement level.
From the About tab you can rename your org app, add a description, and see the details of who the owner and creator of the org app is, plus the last time the item was modified.
Changes you make from this pane are instantly applied to the org app.
To set the endorsement level on your org app item, view the Endorsement tab and, if you have permissions, you can make changes to the endorsement level. Note, the endorsement level set on the org app item is unique to the org app item, not the included items you add to the org app.
To change the app image (icon) or theme (color), select Customize.
From the Branding tab, you can upload your own image as the app icon and select a custom color for your org app. The icon and colors you select are used to customize the org app experience your consumers see once the org app is saved.
To add a custom app image, select Upload. Upload a .jpg or .png file of up to 45 KB. If you need to remove the app image you uploaded, select Reset to default.
To add a custom color to your app, select the down arrow to open the color picker. From here, you can use the color picker to select any color you would like or enter a hexadecimal or RGB value for a color of your choice.
As you make image and theme selections, a sneak peek preview gives you a sense of what your org app looks like for consumers once saved.
Before closing the pane, select Apply. But note, your changes aren't available or visible to consumers until you save your org app.
To get a sense for what your org app looks like for consumers, select Preview app.
A preview of your org app is shown. select Close preview to make more changes or save your changes.
Once you add content, adjust the navigation, review settings, and customize your org app it's time to save and share it with others.
When you're ready, select Save.
If you get a warning that you couldn't save changes because you don't have share permissions, see more on managing org app permissions.
To view your published org app, you can select View app from the confirmation dialog that appears:
Or you can visit the workspace your org app item was saved to and select the org app you would like to view:
You have several ways to share your published org app.
Selecting Share shows several options:
To share with users who already have access to the org app:
To share with users who don't have access to the org app you can manage access to the org app item the way you do any other item, like reports.
Select Share > Add person or group and you can add users from your organization from the modal displayed, without leaving your app:
From the modal displayed you have options to grant share permissions or notify the recipients by email, with an optional message.
For the full access management experience, select Share > Manage access and to see the full access management page with users who have access to the org app and an opportunity to add new users. To add a new user, select Add user and the same modal is displayed.
Remember, users who are given access to an org app item are automatically granted access to:
Managing permissions on an org app item is similar to managing permissions for any other item, like Power BI reports.
First, view the access management screen:
Screenshot of the "more" menu on an org app item:
By default, users granted access to an org app are given read permissions for the org app item, included items, and underlying items.
Want to grant extra permissions to a user? Find the user you would like to manage and choose what you would like to manage. Manage permissions like share or removing the user's access:
Note
There are select cases where your org app doesn't automatically propagate or revoke access to items the org app is dependent on. Access propagation: For example, a report with a paginated report visual, also known as a report definition language (RDL) visual, is dependent on a paginated report item. Org apps don't propagate access to underlying paginated reports at this time. If your org app consumers have a broken view in an org app, consider all the items your consumers need access to, grant necessary access, and have your consumers view the org app again. Access revocation: Org apps propagate access to Fabric items, such as real-time dashboard and notebook items included in the app, but do not yet revoke access automatically when a user loses access to an org app or those items are removed from the org app. Manage access removal of these items from each item's permissions management page.
Here are the items org apps propagate access to:
Here are the items org apps revoke access to:
Org app items are built to automatically manage access for included items and underlying items. You don't have to independently manage access for items individually. Your org app works as expected for your consumers, without broken views in the org app.
This means org apps check a user’s share permissions to add or remove items from an org app plus add, modify, or remove a user’s access to an org app. A user who attempts to manage and org app in these ways must have full share permissions on the org app item, included items, and underlying items. Otherwise their changes or attempt to manage access fails.
Screenshot of a save scenario where a user doesn't have permissions to manage access on included or underlying items.
Screenshot of a share scenario where a user doesn't have permissions to manage access on included or underlying items.
If you encounter these messages, ask for share permissions on items associated with the org app. Or ask someone with share permissions to make changes or manage access for you.
Workspace contributors can create and edit org app items in the workspace. Power BI apps setting that allows contributors to manage and share apps don't apply to org apps.
For org apps, some, but not all, workspace contributors have permissions to manage access for included items. Those contributors might experience messages covered in the section, Insufficient permissions when managing an org app. When contributors add or remove items from an org app that have nonworkspace users, the app update fails if the contributor user doesn't have permissions to share the included items. Same with sharing an org app. If a user doesn't have permissions to reshare the included items or semantic models associated with the org app the share fails. When expecting contributors to edit org app items or manage access, consider a different workspace role for the user. Or grant them share permissions on necessary items.
For users with permissions (workspace admins, members, and contributors with share permissions) you can edit an org app by starting from two places:
From the workspace list, find the org app you would like to edit, select the "more" menu ... > Edit.
While viewing an org app, select Edit app.
Once in the edit view for the org app you can add content, change the navigation structure, adjust settings, and customize your app.
If you would like to remove items from an app, hover over the item you would like to remove and select the "more" menu ... > Remove from app.
Once your changes are made, select Save.
If you removed items from your app, all users who have access to the org app item automatically lose their org app-based access to the removed items and their associated semantic models.
Need to delete an org app? From the workspace an org app is located in, select the "more" menu on the org app item you would like to delete, ... > Delete.
The org app item is deleted. Users who have access to the org app lose their access to items that were included in the org app and the associated semantic models.
Users can be notified via email when an org app is shared.
Users can also grant others to an org app and then choose to share a link.
Users with access to org apps can find their org apps listed in a few places:
In list views, org app items are labeled as "org app" while Power BI apps are labeled as "app."
Org app consumers without permissions to edit the org app are able to view, favorite, and share the org app. If a consumer doesn't have share permissions, they can only share links with users who already have access.
Events
31 Mar, 23 - 2 Apr, 23
The ultimate Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, SQL, and AI community-led event. March 31 to April 2, 2025.
Register todayTraining
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