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Distribute Power BI content to external guest users with Azure AD B2B

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Power BI enables sharing content with external guest users through Azure Active Directory Business-to-Business (Azure AD B2B). By using Azure AD B2B, your organization enables and governs sharing with external users in a central place.

By default, external guests have mostly consumption experiences. You can also choose to provide external users with elevated permissions to the workspaces to experience "Edit and Manage" privileges. Additionally, by enabling the Allow Azure Active Directory guest users to edit and manage content in the organization feature setting, you can allow guest users outside your organization to browse and request access to your organization's content.

Another way to share content with external guest users is in-place dataset sharing with Power BI. This allows you share content with external guest users that they can then access in their own home tenant. For more information about in-place dataset sharing, see About Power BI in-place dataset sharing with guest users in external organizations.

This article provides a basic introduction to Azure AD B2B in Power BI. For more information, see Distribute Power BI content to external guest users using Azure Active Directory B2B.

Enable access

Make sure you enable the Invite external users to your organization feature in the Power BI admin portal before inviting guest users. Even when this option is enabled, the user must be granted the Guest Inviter role in Azure Active Directory to invite guest users.

The option to allow Azure Active Directory guest users to edit and manage content in the organization lets you give guest users the ability to see and create content in workspaces, including browsing your organization's Power BI. The guest user can only be subscribed to content in workspaces that are backed by a Premium capacity.

Note

The Invite external users to your organization setting controls whether Power BI allows inviting external users to your organization. After an external user accepts the invite, they become an Azure AD B2B guest user in your organization. They appear in people pickers throughout the Power BI experience. If the setting is disabled, existing guest users in your organization continue to have access to any items they already had access to and continue to be listed in people picker experiences. Additionally, if guests are added through the planned invite approach they will also appear in people pickers. To prevent guest users from accessing Power BI, use an Azure AD conditional access policy.

Who can you invite?

Most email addresses are supported for guest user invitations, including personal email accounts like gmail.com, outlook.com, and hotmail.com. Azure AD B2B calls these addresses social identities.

You can't invite users that are associated with a government cloud, like Power BI for US Government.

Invite guest users

Guest users only require invitations the first time you invite them to your organization. To invite users, use planned or ad hoc invites.

To use ad hoc invites, use the following capabilities:

  • Report and Dashboard sharing
  • Report and Dashboard subscriptions
  • App access list

Ad hoc invites aren't supported in the workspace access list. Use the planned invites approach to add these users to your organization. After the external user becomes a guest in your organization, add them to the workspace access list.

Planned invites

Use a planned invite if you know which users to invite. The Azure portal or PowerShell enables you to send the invites. You must be assigned the user admin role to invite people.

Follow these steps to send an invite in the Azure portal.

  1. In the Azure portal, select Menu button then select Azure Active Directory.

    Screenshot of the Azure portal with the Azure Active Directory option called out.

  2. Under Manage, select Users > All users > New guest user.

    Screenshot of the Azure portal with the New guest user option called out.

  3. Scroll down and enter an email address and personal message.

    Screenshot of the New Guest User dialog with the email and message fields called out.

  4. Select Invite.

To invite more than one guest user, use PowerShell or create a bulk invite in Azure AD. To use PowerShell for the bulk invite, follow the steps in Tutorial: Use PowerShell to bulk invite Azure AD B2B collaboration users. To use the Azure portal for the bulk invite, follow the steps in Tutorial: Bulk invite Azure AD B2B collaboration users.

The guest user must select Get Started in the email invitation they receive. The guest user is then added to the organization.

Screenshot of the Guest user email invitation with Get Started called out.

Ad hoc invites

To invite an external user at any time, add them to your dashboard or report through the share feature or to your app through the access page. Here's an example of what to do when inviting an external user to use an app.

Screenshot of an external user added to the App access list in Power B I.

The guest user gets an email indicating that you shared the app with them.

Screenshot of the email that guest user receives when the app has been shared.

The guest user must sign in with their organization email address. They'll receive a prompt to accept the invitation after signing in. After signing in, the app opens for the guest user. To return to the app, they should bookmark the link or save the email.

Discoverability for B2B content

The discoverability for B2B content feature in Power BI makes accessing shared B2B content easy for consumers. Power BI users who are guest users in any other tenant will now see a new tab on their home page (in their home tenant) called From external orgs. When you select the tab, it will list all the items shared with you from external tenants that you can access as a guest user. You can filter and sort through the list to find content easily, and see which organization is sharing a specific item with you. When you select an item on the tab, a new window will open and take you to the relevant provider tenant where you can access the item.

Screenshot of the Azure portal with the from external orgs tab called out.

Licensing

Licensing Requirements

The following table lists the licensing requirements for B2B access to Power BI. The columns on the left indicate the workspace type and the per user license for the user sharing data externally. The license limitations across Free user, Pro user, and PPU user outlines limitations for the user consuming the data from an external tenant. Also note to invite guest users, a Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) license is needed:

Workspace Type User Type Free User Pro User PPU User
All Workspaces Free User Not Supported Not Supported Not Supported
Pro Workspace Pro/PPU/PPU Trial Not Supported Supported Supported
PPU Workspace PPU User Not Supported Not Supported Supported
My Workspace All Users Not Supported Not Supported Not Supported
PPU Workspace PPU Trial User Not Supported Not Supported Supported
PPC Workspace Pro/PPU/PPU Trial Supported Supported Supported

Note

Pro Trial users can't invite guest users in Power BI.

Steps to address licensing requirements

As noted above, the guest user must have the proper licensing in place to view the content that you shared. There are a few ways to make sure the user has a proper license:

  • Use Power BI Premium capacity
  • Assign a Power BI Pro or a Premium Per User (PPU) license
  • Use a guest's Power BI Pro or PPU license.

Guest users who can edit and manage content in the organization need a Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) license to contribute content to workspaces or share content with others.

Use Power BI Premium capacity

Assigning the workspace to Power BI Premium capacity lets the guest user use the app without requiring a Power BI Pro license. Power BI Premium also lets apps take advantage of other capabilities like increased refresh rates and large model sizes.

Diagram of the guest user experience with Power B I Premium.

Assign a Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) license to guest user

Assigning a Power BI Pro or PPU license from your organization to a guest user lets that guest user view content shared with them. For more information about assigning licenses, see Assign licenses to users on the Licenses page. Before assigning Pro or PPU licenses to guest users, consult the Product Terms site to ensure you're in compliance with the terms of your licensing agreement with Microsoft.

Diagram of the guest user experience with Assign Pro license from your tenant.

Guest user brings their own Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) license

The guest user may already have a Power BI Pro or PPU license that was assigned to them through their own organization.

Diagram of the guest user experience when they bring their own license.

Guest users who can edit and manage content

When using the allow Azure Active Directory guest users to edit and manage content in the organization feature, the specified guest users get additional access to your organization's Power BI. Allowed guests can see any content that they have permissions for, access Home, browse workspaces, install apps, see where they are on the access list, and contribute content to workspaces. They can create or be an Admin of workspaces. Some limitations apply. The Considerations and Limitations section lists those restrictions.

To help allowed guests sign in to Power BI, provide them with the Tenant URL. To find the tenant URL, follow these steps.

  1. In the Power BI service, in the header menu, select help (?), then select About Power BI.

  2. Look for the value next to Tenant URL. Share the tenant URL with your allowed guest users.

    Screenshot of the About Power B I dialog with the guest user Tenant U R L called out.

Cross-cloud B2B

You can use Power BI's B2B capabilities across Microsoft Azure clouds by configuring Microsoft cloud settings for B2B collaboration. Read Microsoft cloud settings to learn how to establish mutual B2B collaboration between the following clouds:

  • Microsoft Azure global cloud and Microsoft Azure Government
  • Microsoft Azure global cloud and Microsoft Azure China 21Vianet

There are some limitations to the B2B experience that you should be aware of:

  • Guest users may already have a Power BI license that was assigned to them through their own organization. But “Bring your own license” doesn’t work across different Microsoft Azure clouds. A new license has to be assigned to these guest users by the provider tenant.

  • New external users can be invited to the organization through Power BI sharing, permissions, and subscription experiences.

  • On the Home page, the “From external orgs” tab won't list content shared from other clouds.

Admin Info for B2B Collaboration

The following tenant level settings in Power BI provide controls to admins. See Export and sharing admin settings for documentation on these settings:

There are also Azure Active Directory settings that can limit what external guest users can do within your organization. Those settings also apply to your Power BI environment. The following documentation discusses the settings:

Additionally, to use in-place dataset sharing, tenant admins need to enable the following settings:

Considerations and Limitations

  • External Azure AD B2B guests can view apps, dashboards, reports, and export data. They can't access workspaces or publish their own content. To remove these restrictions, you can use the Allow Azure Active Directory guest users to edit and manage content in the organization feature.

  • Information protection in Power BI doesn't support B2B and multi-tenant scenarios. This means that although external users may be able to see sensitivity labels in Power BI:

    • They can't set labels
    • Mandatory and default label polices won't be enforced for them
    • While they can view a report that has a label with protection settings, if they export data from that report to a file, they may not be able to open the file, as it has the Azure Active Directory permissions of the original organization that it got due to the label on the report.

  • Some experiences aren't available to guest users who can edit and manage content in the organization. To update or publish reports, guest users need to use the Power BI service, including Get Data, to upload Power BI Desktop files. The following experiences aren't supported:

    • Direct publishing from Power BI desktop to the Power BI service
    • Guest users can't use Power BI desktop to connect to service datasets in the Power BI service
    • Sending ad hoc invites isn't supported for workspace access lists
    • Power BI Publisher for Excel isn't supported for guest users
    • Guest users can't install a Power BI Gateway and connect it to your organization
    • Guest users can't install apps published to the entire organization
    • Guest users can't use Analyze in Excel
    • Guest users can't be @mentioned in commenting
    • Guest users who use this capability should have a work or school account

  • Guest users using social identities will experience more limitations because of sign-in restrictions.

    • They can use consumption experiences in the Power BI service through a web browser
    • They can't use the Power BI Mobile apps
    • They won't be able to sign in where a work or school account is required

  • This feature isn't currently available with the Power BI SharePoint Online report web part.

  • If you share directly to a guest user, Power BI will send them an email with the link. To avoid sending an email, add the guest user to a security group and share to the security group.

Next steps

For more detailed info, including how row-level security works, check out the whitepaper: Distribute Power BI content to external guest users using Azure AD B2B.

For information about Azure AD B2B, see What is Azure AD B2B collaboration?.

For information about in-place dataset sharing, see Power BI in-place dataset sharing with guest users in external organizations(preview).