Power BI Service中Embed Report下Website or Portal与Publish to Web (public)的区别及技术咨询

Great questions about the two embedding options in Power BI Service—let’s break this down clearly:

1. Ideal Scenarios for Each Option #

Website or Portal #

• Use this when you need to embed reports for authorized, authenticated users (like internal employees or registered customers). Examples include:
  • Embedding in your company’s internal intranet portal, where only logged-in staff can access the report
  • Integrating into a customer-facing application that requires user login, so you can control who sees specific data
  • Any scenario where you need to retain full report interactivity and enforce access permissions

Publish to Web (public) #

• This is for unrestricted, public-facing content where anyone with the link can view the report (no login required). Examples include:
  • Sharing public company metrics on your marketing website
  • Publishing open data reports for the general public (like government or non-profit datasets)
  • Any use case where you don’t need to limit access or secure sensitive data

2. Power BI Embedded Tokens & Capacity Requirements in Production #

• Website or Portal: In production, this option requires Power BI Embedded capacity (EM or A SKUs) and embedded tokens if you’re embedding for external users (customers who don’t have a Power BI license). For internal organizational use (embedding in SharePoint, Teams, or internal apps with AAD authentication), you can use your existing Power BI Pro/Premium Per User (PPU) licenses, but for high-traffic or scalable production environments, dedicated Premium capacity is recommended.
• Publish to Web (public): This option does NOT require any Power BI Embedded tokens or dedicated capacity. It’s a free, public embedding feature, though it comes with strict limitations (like disabled interactivity) and isn’t suitable for sensitive data.

3. Report Filter Functionality #

• Website or Portal: Yes, full filter functionality is available here. Reports embedded via this option retain all the interactive features you’d see in the Power BI Service, including slicers, filters, drill-through, and cross-filtering. This is because the embedding is designed for authenticated users who need to interact with the data.
• Publish to Web (public): As you observed, filters are disabled (along with many other interactive features). This is intentional—public embeds are meant for read-only viewing, not for users to manipulate data. The goal is to ensure the report displays consistently for all public viewers, and to prevent unauthorized data access or manipulation.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者Gags