Report bursting
Power BI report bursting, on a Pro workspace.
Each regional manager gets the report filtered to their region. Each rep gets their own numbers. Every Monday at 7:00, in their inbox, with a short summary of what changed. No Premium, no Fabric capacity, no Power Automate flows to maintain.
What “bursting” means, and why Power BI Pro can’t do it
Report bursting (SSRS called it a data-driven subscription) is one report, sent as many personalised copies: the filter changes per recipient, the schedule doesn’t. Power BI has this built in as dynamic per-recipient subscriptions, but only for workspaces on Premium or Fabric capacity. On a Pro workspace, a subscription sends everyone the same view.
The usual workaround, a Power Automate flow calling Power BI’s Export To File per person, has the same catch: that API only works for workspaces on Premium, Embedded or Fabric capacity, and not on Premium Per User. So on Pro, teams end up with a person manually filtering and forwarding every week, or one hand-made subscription per recipient.
The options, honestly
| Standard subscription | Dynamic subscription | Power Automate flow | BIPulse | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Works on a Pro workspace | Yes | No | No (Export To File needs capacity) | Yes |
| Different filter per recipient | No | Yes | You build it | Yes |
| Needs Premium / Fabric capacity | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Written summary of what changed | No | No | No | Yes |
| Report pages inside the email | Page image | Page image | PDF attachment | Every page, plus PDF |
| Set-up time | Minutes | Hours (mapping dataset) | Days | Minutes |
| Recipient limit | Unlimited | 1,000 | Whatever you build | 300 deliveries/month included |
| Cost beyond Power BI | Free | Capacity from ~$156/mo | Free, plus your time | $79/mo |
Microsoft’s requirements: dynamic subscriptions · Export To File API.
How BIPulse does it
You sign in with your Microsoft account (read-only Power BI permissions, verified publisher). Pick the report, pick the column that splits it, such as Region, Store or Sales rep, and add each person with their value. BIPulse renders the report through Power BI itself, filtered for that person, writes a few sentences from the numbers on the page, checks every figure against the data, and emails it with the pages and a PDF. The schedule runs whether anyone is at their desk or not.
See one first
The quickest way to judge it is to receive one. This is a real BIPulse email from Microsoft’s sample Store Sales report, filtered to one chain.