Coming July 1, 2026, Washington State University is upgrading the base Microsoft license for all students, staff, and faculty to the A5 tier. With this upgrade, all users now have access to Microsoft Power BI, a powerful tool for creating, viewing, and sharing interactive data reports.
Power BI is a Microsoft application—similar to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint—designed for data visualization and business intelligence. While it shares some similarities with Excel, it is better suited for working with large, complex datasets, performing advanced calculations, and building interactive dashboards for data exploration and presentation.
Getting Started
Most users will engage with Power BI as report viewers, accessing reports through the web portal without installing additional software. Viewers can explore dashboards, apply filters, and interact with visuals, but they typically do not edit reports.
Users interested in creating reports will work as developers, using either the web version (limited functionality) or the Power BI Desktop app (full functionality, available only on Windows). Report development includes connecting to data sources (such as Excel files, APIs, or pre-built data models), transforming data, and designing interactive visuals.
Publishing and Sharing
To share reports, developers publish them to a Power BI workspace. Every user has a personal “My Workspace,” and shared team workspaces can be requested through medicine.tech@wsu.edu. Team workspaces are strongly recommended for reports that are collaboratively maintained or widely shared.
Reports can be shared across WSU similar to other Microsoft applications using the “Share” feature. Power BI also offers advanced security options to limit the data different users can see.
Sharing and Data Security
While Power BI shares many similarities with other Microsoft applications, please take note of these important differences to ensure data security and report development are managed appropriately:
- “People in Organization” sharing links are discoverable by others across the university. Unlike other Microsoft apps, users do not have to “have the link” to view reports shared in this way.
- Multiple users may not collaborate/develop within a report at the same time.
- Ability to edit reports on the web portal and desktop app may lead to version control challenges. Be careful not to overwrite web edits with an out of sync desktop files. There is no version history of published reports.
Excel vs. Power BI
Excel remains ideal for data entry and smaller datasets, while Power BI is designed for large datasets, automated data connections, and interactive reporting.
For support or consultation, contact the Data Strategy Team at medicine.data@wsu.edu.