Dynamic subscriptions for paginated reports (Preview)

We’re excited to announce a brand new feature for paginated reports available in Preview – dynamic per recipient subscriptions! This addition is designed to make it easy to distribute a personalized copy of a report to each recipient of an email subscription.

• How it works
• What you’ll need to get started
• Set up a dynamic per recipient subscription
• Things to keep in mind
• Let us know your feedback

How it works

Imagine a scenario where you have a sales report that needs to be sent to various regional managers, each interested in their respective sales territory. With a report parameterized by sales territory, dynamics subscriptions allow you to send out this report so each regional manager only sees data related to their relevant region. This is done by connecting to a Power BI dataset that defines the mapping between recipients and respective parameters. When it’s time to send out the report, the latest data available in your dataset will determine which regional manager should receive a report in their inbox, and with what parameter(s) applied.

For users familiar with SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), this feature is very similar to data-driven subscriptions.

 

What you’ll need to get started

• A paginated report saved in a workspace backed by a capacity (i.e., Power BI Premium capacity, Microsoft Fabric (Preview) trial, or Microsoft Fabric capacity)
• Build permissions to a Power BI dataset that contains the email addresses of your recipients and parameter value(s) that should be applied for each recipient

 

Set up a dynamic per recipient subscription

1. Navigate to a parameterized paginated report.
2. Select Subscribe to report from the toolbar, and then select the new Dynamic per recipient (Preview) option in the subscription pane.
3. In the first step of setting up a dynamic subscription, select a Power BI dataset that contains your recipient data (i.e., email address, respective parameters).
4. Next, select the columns from your dataset that you want to be varied for each recipient. Email address, email subject, report parameters, and even the attachment format can be set dynamically based on data in a dataset.
5. You can apply filters and change the method of aggregation by expanding the Filter and Build panes respectively.
6. On the Email details page, map the column from your dataset that contains email addresses to the Recipients On this page you can also set the name of the subscription, subject, email message, and attachment format. Note, email subject and attachment format can optionally be mapped to a column from your dataset.
7. Proceeding to the Parameters page, map the columns in your dataset to the corresponding parameters such that each recipient will receive a copy of the report with their respective parameters applied. If you want the same value of a parameter to be applied for all recipients, you also have the option to apply the Current value of the parameter or the Default value.
8. On the Schedule page, specify the frequency at which you want this subscription to send. By turning off Active subscription, you have the option of triggering this subscription manually instead of on a recurring basis.
9. The final Review and finish page lets you review the dynamic subscription you just created as well as go back to any step to make changes. Select Save and close to finalize your subscription.
10. In the subscription pane, you will see this newly created dynamic subscription. You can asynchronously send this subscription to all recipients by selecting Send now.

Source: Microsoft