Power BI – Subscribe Report

Subscribing reports is a feature provided by Power BI so that we could keep track of our reports at regular intervals. Subscribing a report helps receive emails, with the screenshot as well as a link to the report,  with a preview of that report. It makes an analyst task very easy to keep the report updated, and viewed at regular intervals. One can set up to 24(twenty-four) subscriptions, at a time, and can set receiving emails daily, weekly, monthly, or after data refreshes, etc. In this article, we will learn how to subscribe to a report in Power BI. 

How to Subscribe to a Report in Power BI

Given a workspace name, geeks_for_geeks, and a report, name, report1. Our task is to subscribe to this report while exploring all the features in it. Setting the email receiving frequency to daily. 

The following are the steps: 

Step 1: Go to the required workspace. For example, geeks_for_geeks. Then, click on report1.

Step 2: The report has been opened. In the top navigation bar, you can view various options. Click on the Subscribe button. 

Step 3: Now, a new dialogue box will be opened, on the right side of the screen, name, Subscribe to emails. Click on the +Add new subscription. 

Step 4: All, the options related to a subscription are visible. By default, the name of the subscription is the same as the name of the report. But, you can edit and change the name accordingly. For example, the default name of the subscription is Super store report. 

Step 5: On the right side of the subscription name, we have 3 more options. All, are very useful. The first option is Run now, you can click on it, to send the email notification instantly, so that you could check whether the subscription is working correctly or not, this option can only be used, after saving the subscription once, we will be viewing this in detail, in the later stage of the article. The second option, is subscription on/off slider, this option tells us whether one wants to enable or disable the subscription. This option is not used to delete the subscription. The third option, is the delete icon, it tells whether you want to delete the current subscription or not. 

Step 6: Now, under the Subscribe section, we have to add the email addresses of the recipients, to which you want to subscribe to this dashboard.

Step 7: One can also add a subject, to the subscription, which brief’s about the dashboard, and the use of this subscription.

Step 8: This option name, Report page is only present in the subscribe report and not in the subscribe dashboard. Here, one could select which page of the report, you want to provide the email notifications. 

Step 9: Here, comes one of the most important option, name, Frequency. It tells, how frequently you want to receive, email notifications, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly etc.  

Step 10: Now, in the next three steps 10, 11, and 12. We will explore the different frequencies as mentioned in step 9. For example, if we select, weekly as the frequency, then we could look at some check boxes that appears, below the Frequency. You, can choose the specific days, for which you want to receive the email notifications, regarding the report. For example, Sun, Mon etc.  

Step 11: We could also choose, Monthly instead of weekly. A new box, name, Every month on day(s) appears. Type, the month, and the days range for which you want to receive, the email notifications. For example, 10, 20-25, i.e. the notification will be received in the month of October, from 20th October to 25th October.

Step 12: For this example, we will choose Daily, as the frequency. An email, will be received, daily. Now, you might be wondering at what time email will be received. 

Step 13: We can set the time, at which email notification has to be delivered, as shown in the image below. We can also set the time zone accordingly for different countries.  

Step 14: We could also set the Start date, and the End date of the subscription. By default, the start date is the date at which you are creating a subscription to a dashboard, but can be edited accordingly. The benefit, of the start date and end date, is that the emails will be received, for this particular time period only. For example, if the start date is 22/10/2022, and the end date is 25/10/2022, then the notifications will be received, from 22 October to 25 October 2022 only. 

Step 15: Now, we are only left with three check boxes. The first check box, tells whether you want to provide access to the dashboard to the recipient, the second check box, tells, whether you want to provide a link to the dashboard, while receiving the email, and the third check box asks whether you want to preview the report, while receiving the email. 

Step 16: We, are completed with all the requirements to set a subscription. Let us, check whether an email will be sent to the recipient or not. To do this click on the Run now button. You will observe that, an error came, stating, Unable to run subscription. This happened because, you havent’ saved, the subscription. 

Step 17: Click on the Save and close button. 

Step 18: Now, again open the subscription. Now, click on Run now button, to test the successful subscription of the dashboard. You, can view the notification, email has successfully been sent.  

Step 19: Below is the email received by power bi. You can go to the dashboard, as well as manage the subscription, from here itself. One can also preview the report. Hence, we have successfully subscribed to a report.