Dashboards, Alerts & Subscriptions
Create Power BI dashboards by pinning visuals, set up data-driven alerts, configure email subscriptions, and manage content endorsement (promote and certify).
Dashboards, alerts, and trust
A dashboard is a highlights reel. You take the most important visuals from different reports and pin them onto a single page. It’s your at-a-glance view — like a car dashboard showing speed, fuel, and temperature all in one place.
Alerts notify you when a metric crosses a threshold. Subscriptions email report snapshots on a schedule. And endorsement (promote/certify) marks trusted content so users know which datasets are the “official” ones.
Dashboards vs reports
| Feature | Dashboard | Report |
|---|---|---|
| Created in | Power BI service only | Power BI Desktop (or service) |
| Pages | Single page only | Multiple pages |
| Interactivity | Click tile → opens source report | Slicers, filters, drillthrough, bookmarks |
| Data sources | Tiles from multiple reports | Single semantic model (typically) |
| Alerts | Yes — set on tiles (cards, KPIs, gauges) | No — alerts only on dashboards |
| Best for | At-a-glance monitoring | Detailed analysis and exploration |
Creating a dashboard:
- Open a report in the Power BI service
- Hover over a visual → click the pin icon 📌
- Choose “New dashboard” or pin to an existing one
- Repeat for visuals from any report
Riley at Coastal Fresh (🛒) creates an executive dashboard with tiles from three reports:
- Revenue card (from Sales report)
- Inventory status (from Operations report)
- Customer satisfaction score (from Survey report)
Data alerts
Alerts trigger notifications when a dashboard tile’s value crosses a threshold.
| Alert Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Condition | Above, below, or equal to a value |
| Threshold | The trigger value (e.g., revenue below $50K) |
| Frequency | At most once an hour, or once a day |
| Notification | Power BI notification centre + optional email |
Requirements: Classic data alerts work on dashboard tiles — specifically cards, KPIs, and gauges. They’re not available on chart or table tiles. Note: Power BI is also introducing Fabric Activator alerts that work directly on reports for more flexible alerting scenarios.
Kenji at Apex Manufacturing (🏭) sets an alert: if daily production falls below 800 units, he gets an email immediately. This lets him respond to production issues without constantly watching the dashboard.
Subscriptions
Subscriptions email a snapshot of a report page or dashboard on a schedule.
How to set up:
- Open a report/dashboard → Subscribe (envelope icon)
- Choose recipients, frequency (daily, weekly, after refresh)
- Set the page to capture and optional filters
- Recipients get a PNG image of the page + link to the live report
Dr. Ethan at Bayview Medical (🏥) subscribes department heads to a weekly compliance summary — every Monday morning they receive the latest compliance scores in their inbox.
Endorsement: promote and certify
In large organisations, users need to know which datasets and reports are trustworthy.
| Level | Who Can Do It | What It Means | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|
| None | Default | Content has no endorsement | No badge |
| Promoted | Content owner/admin | Owner recommends this as reliable | Blue badge |
| Certified | Designated authority (configured by admin) | Verified by organisation as trusted | Gold badge with checkmark |
How to promote: Settings → Endorsement → Promoted How to certify: Requires admin-configured certification authority. Settings → Endorsement → Certified
Nadia at Prism Agency (📊) promotes her curated client datasets. The agency’s data team certifies the shared company-wide campaign performance dataset — so everyone knows to use it instead of creating their own.
Exam tip: promote vs certify
- Promoted: Any content owner can promote their own content. It’s a personal recommendation.
- Certified: Only designated certifiers (configured by the Power BI admin) can certify. It’s an organisational endorsement.
The exam tests this distinction. If the scenario says “the BI team has verified the dataset” → Certified. If “the report author recommends it” → Promoted.
Knowledge check
Kenji wants to be notified when daily production drops below 800 units. Where should he set this up?
Nadia promotes her campaign performance semantic model. The data engineering team wants to mark the company-wide 'Master Campaign Dataset' as the single source of truth. What endorsement level should the data team apply?
Next up: Gateways and Scheduled Refresh — keep your data up to date.