How Do You Schedule Power BI Reports by Email?

To schedule a Power BI report email, open the report in the Power BI service and select Subscribe. Choose the recipients, frequency and time, then save the subscription. Your administrator must have enabled subscriptions, and your account and workspace must meet the requirements.

A subscription is a good fit when your colleagues need a regular report-page preview and link. If you also prepare files, choose a different view for each customer or assemble several reports, PBRS can take over that recurring work. You configure the report, output and delivery in one schedule.

Start with what should arrive in the inbox

Imagine a distributor who needs yesterday’s sales figures each morning. A PDF lets the partner read and keep the report without signing in to Power BI. In PBRS, you can select the report pages, apply the date filter and email that file on a schedule. Go to the PBRS setup to follow this example, or continue below for the native subscription steps.

For a subscription to your own inbox, you need access to the report and either a Pro or PPU license, or access to a paid Premium-capacity workspace. To subscribe other people, you also need Pro or PPU, a Contributor, Member or Admin workspace role, and membership in the organization. Guest users cannot subscribe others. Microsoft’s subscription guide explains these requirements.

Set up the native subscription

1. Open the report and select Subscribe > Create a subscription. Give it a name you’ll recognize later.
2. Add eligible recipients. Choose the frequency, time zone and delivery time, and review the start and end dates.
3. Select the preview, report link and any eligible attachment. Add a subject and message that tell the reader what has arrived.
4. Save, then select Run now to check the email. This sends the current report; it doesn’t update its underlying data.

A full PDF or PowerPoint attachment requires a Premium-capacity or PPU workspace for a standard Power BI report. An email and an interactive report also have different access requirements. If you have sufficient permissions, the subscription can grant viewing access, but the recipient still needs the appropriate license.

If you prefer to build the process yourself, Power Automate can export and email a report through a flow. Its standard-report Export to File for Power BI Reports action requires capacity; PPU alone doesn’t qualify. Microsoft’s flow walkthrough describes that route. PBRS offers supported Pro and PPU file-delivery workflows using other rendering methods, as explained in the PBRS licensing guidance.

The partner PDF changes the question from “When should the email go out?” to “Who prepares the file each morning?” PBRS can generate and send it from one schedule. When the requirement grows, that schedule can also handle the recipient’s report view or a collection of reports.

The comparison below covers standard Power BI reports in the Power BI service. Paginated reports, which are designed for page-based documents, have different subscription and export options.

Pro and Premium Per User (PPU) are licenses for individual users. Capacity provides computing resources for a workspace. A user license and capacity are different purchases.

For example, a store manager may need their own figures and a different filename from the finance team. Microsoft’s dynamic subscriptions can vary report filters. PBRS can use the same recipient record to choose those filters and the file and delivery details, so you maintain the instructions together.

See Microsoft’s dynamic subscription guide, the native subscription requirements, PBRS data-driven setup and package options for the routes in the table.

Your report account still needs access to the source, and refresh quotas and mail-provider limits remain. For Excel or CSV, check the PBRS visual-data restrictions for the chosen output. A partner can read a delivered file without a Power BI license; interactive report access is a separate choice.

If you’re setting up delivery in PBRS itself, you can skip to your next step. This chapter is for developers who want an application to start or manage the reporting job.

A business application can ask PBRS to run the same reporting job. For example, a customer portal could send a month-end report after billing finishes. The application checks that the customer may receive it; PBRS then generates and delivers the configured file or package.

The PBRS REST API lets your backend manage schedules, report filters or paginated-report parameters, recipients and execution. Parameters are inputs such as customer and month. This route reuses the reporting setup instead of making each application feature assemble its own export and email process.

Follow the customer’s request

1. Authorize it. Check the customer, permitted report, filters and email destination on your server.
2. Prepare the job. Use an approved customer-specific schedule, or update it through the operation for that report source.
3. Start it. Authenticate from the backend and submit the schedule when billing is complete.
4. Record the outcome. Keep the execution identifier, check the result and confirm delivery to the intended destination.

Run an existing schedule

The following authenticated request starts schedule 101 without waiting for the whole job to finish. Use your own approved schedule ID and the authentication required by your installed API version.

POST /api/Schedule/ExecuteScheduleAsync
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "ScheduleType": "report",
  "uniqueid": 101,
  "RunBy": "API"
}

PBRS returns an ExecutionId, which identifies the submitted run. Use it to ask how that run is progressing:

GET /api/Schedule/GetExecutionStatus?ExecutionId=YOUR_EXECUTION_ID

Check Status, then parse ResultJson, which contains the execution result as JSON text. Completed means processing has finished; inspect the result for successful generation and delivery. Confirm receipt at the destination as well. The schedule lifecycle reference explains the response and status checks.

Keep updates safe for the next run

A full schedule update needs the complete intended definition. Preserve the filters, destinations and destination IDs you still need, then retrieve the schedule to check the saved changes. Use the operation for the report source and its current write schema; a read response may omit settings or mask credentials. The create and update guide covers those rules.

Keep credentials and access tokens on the backend. See the developer portal for authentication and version-specific schemas, and the PBRS Report Automation API overview for the application route.

Choose PBRS when you want the file preparation and email delivery managed as one recurring job. Set the instructions once, then reuse them for each scheduled delivery.

A native subscription remains a good choice for an eligible internal preview or attachment. A Power Automate flow can fit if you have the required capacity and want to maintain that process. PBRS is the direction to explore when the recurring work includes producing, personalizing, packaging or protecting the files as well as sending them.

Supported Pro and PPU workflows can use PBRS without adding capacity for those jobs. Confirm the report source, authentication, deployment and PBRS license for your chosen output; the source permissions, export rules and refresh limits still apply.

Start with one report you currently prepare by hand. Set up the partner PDF, check the received file and compare the ongoing work with your current routine. That gives you a practical basis for deciding whether to extend the schedule to more recipients or reports.

Explore PBRS report email automation to plan your first delivery. If the request starts in an application, explore the PBRS API route.

Technical sources reviewed: 8 October 2026.

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