{"id":36683,"date":"2026-06-23T13:49:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T20:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/?p=36683"},"modified":"2026-06-23T13:49:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T20:49:46","slug":"microsoft-power-bi-access-to-be-extended-to-all-students-staff-and-faculty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/2026\/06\/23\/microsoft-power-bi-access-to-be-extended-to-all-students-staff-and-faculty\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Power BI Access to Be Extended to All Students, Staff, and Faculty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Power BI is a Microsoft application\u2014similar to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint\u2014designed 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Getting Started<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Publishing and Sharing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To share reports, developers publish them to a Power BI workspace. Every user has a personal \u201cMy Workspace,\u201d and shared team workspaces can be requested through <a href=\"mailto:medicine.tech@wsu.edu\">medicine.tech@wsu.edu<\/a>. Team workspaces are strongly recommended for reports that are collaboratively maintained or widely shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reports can be shared across WSU similar to other Microsoft applications using the \u201cShare\u201d feature. Power BI also offers advanced security options to limit the data different users can see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sharing and Data Security<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cPeople in Organization\u201d sharing links are discoverable by others across the university. Unlike other Microsoft apps, users do not have to \u201chave the link\u201d to view reports shared in this way.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Multiple users may not collaborate\/develop within a report at the same time.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Excel vs. Power BI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Excel remains ideal for data entry and smaller datasets, while Power BI is designed for large datasets, automated data connections, and interactive reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For support or consultation, contact the Data Strategy Team at <a href=\"mailto:medicine.data@wsu.edu\">medicine.data@wsu.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25158,"featured_media":36684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wsuwp_accessibility_report":null},"categories":[12,80],"tags":[36],"wsuwp_university_location":[],"wsuwp_university_org":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36685,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36683\/revisions\/36685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36683"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=36683"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.wsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=36683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}