Microsoft has announced some new abilities coming to Power BI Mobile. Specifically, users running the tool on their smartphone can now access Power BI content that has been shared by external sources.
Known as Power BI B2B, the ability will bring far more usefulness to the service. For example, companies may work with numerous suppliers or contractors and can use B2B to manage data from networks of companies.
Power BI has allowed employees in an organization to view these reports, but access for partners was not available on mobile. With B2B, partners can now access reports and view contents on their handset.
“When sharing content in Power BI, the recipient of the content (internal and external) receives an email with a link to the shared item,” Microsoft explains. “Opening the link from a mobile device with the Power BI app installed, opens the app. And, now, if the item belongs to an organization different than the signed in user's organization, the app will automatically connect to that organization and open the item.”
Users connected to an external organization through the Power BI Mobile app will be able to see all items that have been shared. This includes reports, insights, applications, and dashboards.
To see these items, users need to head to the “Shared with me” location. It is worth noting the external organization will need to give permission to any users wishing to see the content.
Accessing Content
In a blog post, Microsoft explains how Power BI Mobile can access an external organization to see shared reports:
- “To access items shared from other organizations, you can use the link in the invitation mail you received when the report was shared with you, as shown above.
- Another option is to have a link to a report or dashboard copied directly from Power BI. This link must have a CTID param, which tells Power BI app which organization the item belongs to. If the app recognizes that this organization is different than the user's organization, it will connect to that organization.”