One App to Rule Them All: Set up and Publish a Power BI App

Overview

"Dashboards. Reports. Apps. Aren't they all the same thing??"

Over the years, I have noticed that reports are called dashboards, dashboards are called?reports?and then there are?apps. Dashboards are high-level, reports are granular, the terms are used interchangeably...but an app is different.

Apps in Power BI are a dedicated area for visually presenting workspace content (ie, dashboards, etc.) to a group of users in an organization. Think about a landing page in a company intranet. Similar concept.

An app is primarily used for sharing content across an organization, and can provide an official, central point where consumers can quickly access reports, dashboards and other information.

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Apps are based on pre-made templates and can house both dashboards and reports.

Credit: Microsoft

App templates can contain a navigation menu, whose access and display properties are configurable.

The theme and the experience can also be modified, at least partially.

Credit: John Lim

To get started, find the Apps item in the Power BI cloud service menu.

Click Get apps. The Power BI apps panel will appear.

Now, there are two types of apps. Organizational?apps are purely for users within the company.

And then there are?template?apps, which are made by Microsoft or designers within the Power BI community. They are available in AppSource and can be installed in any org.

You can even build your own app, fun stuff!

Use cases

A few scenarios support the use of apps. This is not an exhaustive list but meant to illustrate some possibilities.

• A?department?at Lowry Insurance wants to host a?portal?where all internal metrics are accessible to department members in a?central?place. There are dashboards and reports. Links to other resources, such as on-prem applications, must also be available. It will serve as the?official, dedicated?information resource for that department.
• A data officer working for a Contoso competitor, Babcha Brands, has been tasked with establishing a collection?of executive-level?reports. They would like a?branded portal?that features the company?logo?and?color scheme?to reflect the recent update to the brand.?Only the executives?can?view?the content and would like to be notified when an update occurs.
• Users at a large multi-national report that they have to check?multiple places and ask various report designers for content needed for their monthly reports. Report designers would like to create a space that users can visit featuring the huge?catalog?of?reports?available in the organization. Access must be governed via Active Directory. A?single destination?sounds like a great idea, but?customization?and?administration?must be?minimal.

These use cases highlight the value that a proper app can bring:

• Official organization. If you are looking for an area to centralize and distribute data, reports, etc., then an app may provide solution. Providing a location to the community where everyone can get their information sells itself (we hope).
• Simple security. Apps do not have a special or separate security model. Admins can control access and permissions to the app via AD. There may be some "gotchas" along the way, though I have not seen anything exotic or specialized.
• Precise presentation. App admins can configure the theme color and logo.
• Minimal maintenance. Template apps, including those found in the app marketplace, allow you to skip designing a portal from scratch and having to maintain what could turn into a beast.

Security/Privileges

A few words on security and access.

• Access in general.?Two types of access exist: access to the app itself and access to the content. Both types can be handled through Active Directory. If you set up an AAD group and add users to the group, all you need to do is add the group to the app via the Permissions tab.
• Dataset access > app access.?Every user must be permitted to access the underlying dataset. Having access to the app will not override or grant that dataset access.
• Power user ready.?You can grant users?Build permissions?to datasets. This allows data savvy users to connect to the actual underlying dataset, taking them a step further than the high-level dashboards and reports. Another interesting option:?allow users to download reports. Power users or designers can download the actual item and have a play.
• RLS.?If a dataset has Row-level security (RLS) settings, those settings are still in place. They will not be affected.

Not everything around security and access is covered here. These areas are among some of the more important areas. Admins may be interested in learning how to automatically install apps and push them to users via the admin portal.

Prerequisites

Setting up an app is easy, however, there are prerequisites.

• Licensing.?Best bet is to consult with Microsoft to determine who can create and share what with whom based on the license type.

• Only one app?can be installed per workspace.
• Read-only.?Users will not have the ability to modify the data, report, dashboard or app itself. If you are looking for that type of functionality, it is not possible from here.

For other considerations and limitations, see here. Nothing jumps out at me as a deal-breaker.

Set up and publish an app

We'll assume you have all of this covered so let's get started.

First, we'll?create a workspace?to install a new app or find a workspace that does not already have an app.

Create app by clicking the Create app or Update app button.

The app administration panel will appear. There are three tabs - Setup, Navigation and Permissions. We will go through each.

In Setup, enter details for the app.

The app logo, contact info and support site can be set here.

Next, we set up the Navigation. Make sure New navigation builder option is set to On.

If you so choose, you can hide content from navigation. It is important to note:?when you publish something in the workspace, it will be available by default in the app.

You can hide the apps via the Navigation section:

Or exclude them via the option at the workspace level:

Next, we determine?app visibility and what users can do in the app via the Permissions tab.

Entire organization means everybody in the company can access the app. Specific individuals, on the other hand, are named users or AD groups.

Admins can also grant users Build permissions and/or allow users to make copies of reports featured in the app.

The Links section will contain the hyperlinks for individual the app, dashboards and reports.

Click Publish app or Update app.

The app is live. A shareable link will appear that can be sent to users who have access to the app.

Depending on the size, it may take a few minutes for changes to appear.

Un-publish an app

For whatever reason, you may need to roll back an app after it has been published. Unpublish app can be found right above the workspace content list.

Done, and now the app is off the books and inaccessible to users.

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As you can hopefully see, not that many steps are involved in installing and launching an app in the Power BI cloud service. Among other benefits, users will appreciate the ease of access, the organization and structure. The experience can be smooth, and admins will surely appreciate the simplicity of maintaining the space and collection.

External access is also possible but remember, this is a functional guide that demonstrates how to carry out a particular task. Be sure to vet this with your security team or governance group before you try any of this.

That's the Power BI App lesson. Comments, feedback welcome. Congrats to Erick Smith and Glenn Scheideler for launching the Claims Reporting Terminal Power BI app here at Beazley this week. These fellas not only work for an award-winning department, but their work is part of Beazley's cloud journey. Kudos, gang.