Why Consumers Need Their Own Experience
Power BI was built for report builders. The workspace model, development tools, and administration features all cater to the people who create and manage content.
But the vast majority of Power BI users are consumers — people who open reports, look at numbers, and make decisions. They don't build models, write DAX, or manage workspaces. They just need to find the right report and open it.
The consumer experience in Power BI was never designed for discovery at scale:
- Finding a report requires knowing where it lives — which workspace, which App, or who shared it
- There's no tenant-wide search with metadata — consumers can't search by business unit, topic, or description
- No distinction between production and development — consumers see everything they have access to, including test reports
- No context about what a report does — just a name and a workspace
The result: consumers message admins. "Where is the sales dashboard?" "Which revenue report should I use?" "Is this report still current?"
These messages seem small individually. At scale, they consume hours of admin time every week.
In organizations with 200+ reports, Power BI admins typically receive 10-20 "where is X?" messages per week. That's over 500 interruptions per year.
What Power BI Provides for Consumers
Power BI Home
Home shows recently accessed reports, reports shared with the user, and algorithmic recommendations. It's personalized but not searchable in a structured way — you can't filter by business unit, certification status, or description.
Power BI Apps
Apps package reports into curated collections with custom navigation. They're the best native option for consumer-facing content, but each App is an isolated silo. There's no cross-App discovery, no metadata search, and creating Apps requires manual curation.
Microsoft 365 Search
Power BI content can appear in M365 search results. In practice, relevance is inconsistent, results mix reports with documents and emails, and there's no way to filter by Power BI-specific metadata.
Limitations of Native Options
| Capability | Home | Apps | M365 Search |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cross-workspace search | No | No | Partial |
| Filter by business unit | No | No | No |
| Report descriptions | No | Manual | No |
| Certification visibility | No | No | No |
| Self-service access requests | No | No | No |
| Branded experience | No | Limited | No |
None of these options provide a dedicated discovery experience for consumers.
What a Self-Service Catalog Looks Like
A self-service report catalog is a purpose-built interface where consumers find and access reports. It's separate from the Power BI workspace experience and designed specifically for discovery.
Searchable
Full-text search across report names, descriptions, and metadata. Type "revenue" and see every revenue-related report in the organization, regardless of which workspace it lives in.
Filterable
Filter reports by business unit, workspace, certification status, or intended audience. A finance analyst can instantly see all certified reports tagged for the Finance department.
Contextual
Every report listing includes governance metadata — a description of what it shows, who it's intended for, when it was last refreshed, and who owns it. Consumers can evaluate whether a report is relevant before opening it.
Certified
Certified reports surface first in search results and are visually distinguished. Consumers know which reports have been reviewed and approved by the organization.
Access-Controlled
The catalog shows consumers what exists — even reports they don't yet have access to. For restricted reports, a self-service access request flow lets consumers request access without tracking down an admin.
Branded
The catalog carries the organization's branding, not Power BI's. It feels like an internal tool, not a detour through a Microsoft product.
How a Catalog Reduces Admin Burden
Fewer "Where Is X?" Messages
The single biggest time sink for Power BI admins is answering discovery questions. A searchable catalog eliminates most of these by letting consumers help themselves.
Fewer Duplicate Reports
When consumers can't find the report they need, they request a new one — or build it themselves. A catalog surfaces existing reports so duplicates don't get created.
Faster Report Retirement
Retiring a report is easier when consumers can see its lifecycle status in the catalog. Mark a report as Deprecated, point to its replacement, and consumers migrate themselves over time.
Better Governance Adoption
When governance metadata (descriptions, audience tags, certification) is visible to consumers in the catalog, the value of governance becomes tangible. Report owners are more motivated to document their reports when they know consumers will see it.
Catalog vs Power BI Apps
Power BI Apps are sometimes used as a discovery mechanism, but they serve a different purpose.
| Self-Service Catalog | Power BI Apps | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Tenant-wide discovery | Curated report collections |
| Scope | All governed reports | Reports packaged into a specific App |
| Search | Cross-workspace, metadata-aware | Within a single App only |
| Maintenance | Automatic from inventory | Manual curation per App |
| Descriptions | From governance metadata | Manually written per App |
| Access requests | Self-service flow | Manual (contact admin) |
| Certification | Visible in search results | Not surfaced |
| Scalability | Grows with inventory | Each App is a separate effort |
Apps and catalogs are complementary. Apps are great for packaging a curated set of reports for a specific audience. A catalog provides the tenant-wide discovery layer that Apps can't.
Building a Catalog Without SummitView
It's possible to build a report catalog without a third-party tool. Here are the most common approaches:
SharePoint List or Page
Create a SharePoint list with report names, links, descriptions, and metadata. This is the simplest approach but requires manual maintenance. It goes stale within weeks unless someone is specifically assigned to keep it current.
Power BI Report
Build a Power BI report that queries the Power BI REST API for workspace and report metadata. This is creative but fragile — it requires a service principal, custom development, and still lacks consumer-facing features like search and access requests.
Custom Web App
Build a custom web application that integrates with the Power BI API. This provides the most flexibility but requires significant development effort, ongoing maintenance, and authentication integration.
Why These Are Hard
The challenge isn't building the initial catalog — it's keeping it current. Report inventories change daily. New reports are published, old ones are deprecated, workspaces are reorganized. Any solution that requires manual updates will fall behind.
Effective catalogs need:
- Automatic inventory sync
- Governance metadata storage
- Full-text search infrastructure
- Authentication and access control
- Self-service access request flows
Building all of this from scratch is a significant engineering project.
How SummitView's Consumer Portal Works
SummitView's Consumer Portal is a self-service report catalog that's built into the platform. It uses the inventory, governance, and usage data that SummitView already collects.
Setup (Admin)
- Enable the portal in SummitView settings — a single toggle
- Configure access mode — open to all authenticated users or restricted to specific groups
- Set the subdomain — the portal runs on a branded subdomain (e.g.,
portal.yourcompany.summitview.app) - Govern your reports — use the Governance Editor to add descriptions, owners, and audience tags
Reports automatically appear in the portal once they're governed. No manual catalog curation required.
Consumer Experience
Consumers visit the portal and sign in with their Microsoft account. They see:
- Search bar — Type to search across report names and descriptions
- Browse by workspace — See all workspaces and the reports inside them
- Browse by App — View reports published to Power BI Apps
- Report details — Description, intended audience, owner, certification status, last refresh time
- Direct launch — Click to open the report in Power BI
- Access requests — Request access to reports they can see but can't yet open
Admin Experience
Admins manage the portal through SummitView's settings:
- View portal usage statistics (visits, searches, popular reports)
- Manage access control
- See which reports need governance attention before appearing in the catalog
- Monitor access request volume
No Custom Development
The portal requires no code, no SharePoint sites, and no custom API integrations. It's a feature of SummitView that works alongside the governance and monitoring capabilities already in the platform.
FAQ
How is the Consumer Portal different from Power BI Home?
Power BI Home shows recently accessed content and algorithmic recommendations. The Consumer Portal is a structured, searchable catalog with governance metadata — descriptions, owners, certification, and audience tags. It's designed for discovery, not recency.
Can consumers see reports they don't have access to?
Yes, by design. The catalog shows what exists across the organization so consumers can discover reports and request access. This eliminates the "I didn't know that report existed" problem.
Does the portal replace Power BI for viewing reports?
No. The portal is for discovery. When a consumer finds the report they want, clicking it opens the report directly in Power BI. The portal doesn't embed or render reports.
How quickly does the catalog reflect changes?
The catalog is updated as SummitView syncs inventory from Power BI. New reports appear and deleted reports disappear automatically — no manual catalog maintenance required.
What if my reports don't have descriptions yet?
Reports without governance metadata can still appear in the portal, but they'll be less discoverable. The Governance Editor makes it easy to add descriptions and audience tags — most organizations complete their initial governance pass in under a week.
Do consumers need a SummitView license?
No. Consumer portal access is included in the SummitView subscription. There's no per-consumer pricing. Consumers authenticate with their existing Microsoft account.
Give Your Consumers a Better Way to Find Reports
Every "where is my report?" message is a sign that your organization has outgrown Power BI's native discovery experience. A self-service catalog puts the answer in consumers' hands — and gives admins their time back.
SummitView's Consumer Portal provides a branded, searchable report catalog that stays current automatically. No SharePoint lists. No custom development. No manual maintenance.
Start your free 14-day trial and see how a consumer portal transforms report discovery.