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Curator enables you to embed Power BI reports as a seamless part of your portal, providing your users with a unified analytics experience, streamlining access to critical insights.

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Prerequisites

Before adding Power BI reports to Curator, ensure you have established your Power BI connection and have reports published to a Power BI workspace.

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Creating a Power BI Report in Curator

To add a new Power BI report to your Curator portal follow the steps below:
  2. Click the New Report button
    Add new Power BI report from list page
  3. Fill out the details in the Create Power BI Report form:
    Create new Power BI report
    • Workspace: Select the Power BI workspace containing the report.
    • Report: Select the specific report to embed.
    • Title: This appears in navigation menus and page titles - can be different from the Power BI report name.
The display options will allow you to control how the report is scaled (the Display Option), the appearance of the toolbar, the persistence of filters, the appearance of the filter pane as well as the Power BI report Page Navigation.

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Display Settings Reference

The Display tab controls how the embedded report is scaled and how its page navigation renders: The Report tab exposes the following display toggles:
Not every Power BI SDK setting is surfaced as a Curator option. The following are not currently configurable through Curator’s interface:
  • Zoom level — a programmatic zoom override
  • Bookmarks pane — showing or hiding the bookmarks panel
If you need one of these settings, submit a feature request through your support channel.
Optionally, explore the Discovery tab and the rest of the Display tab (thumbnail and tutorial settings) to further customize how the report appears and is found by users or linked to other content across your site. Be sure to save your report before navigating away from the page.

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Fit to Width and Scroll Bars

Each Display Option scales the report differently, and that choice decides whether the embedded report shows scroll bars:
  • Fit to Width scales the report page so that its width matches the width of the embed area. Both dimensions are scaled proportionally by that same factor, but the height is not independently fitted, so the page keeps its authored proportions and scrolls vertically whenever the scaled page is taller than the embed area. Very wide content can scroll horizontally as well.
  • Fit to Page scales the whole report page so that it fits inside the embed area in both directions, so the entire page is always visible and there are no scroll bars.
  • Actual Size renders the report page at the size it was authored, with no scaling, and scrolls in whichever direction the page is larger than the embed area.
This is why a report set to Fit to Width so that its numbers stay legible can end up with scroll bars: the report is only being fit horizontally, so an authored page that is taller than the embed area has to scroll. Because Curator sizes the embed area relative to the browser window, the same report can scroll on a short window and not on a tall one. To reduce or remove the scroll bars, choose whichever of the following suits the report:
  • Set the Display Option to Fit to Page. This removes the scroll bars, but it is a trade-off: the page is shrunk to fit, so small text and dense figures become harder to read — which is the very problem Fit to Width was solving.
  • Author a shorter page in Power BI Desktop, using the canvas settings of the report page, so its aspect ratio is closer to that of the embed area, then republish the report. Under Fit to Width, reducing the canvas height is what shortens the scroll; narrowing the canvas instead raises the scale factor and can make the vertical scroll worse. Depending on the new canvas size and the visuals on it, some content may still be rescaled.
  • Move visuals off a long page onto additional report pages, so readers use page navigation instead of scrolling.
  • Turn on Enable status bar to give readers the Power BI zoom controls, so they can adjust the scale themselves while viewing the report.
Fit to Page is not available for dashboards. Power BI dashboards do not support it, so the options above that change the Display Option apply to reports only. See the note under Default Display Option.

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Default Display Option

The Display Option on an individual report (or dashboard) defaults to Global Default, which follows a tenant-wide setting. To set that default:
  2. Set Default Display Option to Fit to Page, Fit to Width, or Actual Size. This value is applied to every embedded Power BI report and dashboard that is left on Global Default.
An individual report or dashboard that specifies its own Display Option overrides this global default. If neither the per-item option nor the global setting is configured, embeds fall back to Fit to Width. As with the per-item option, this default applies to desktop viewports only; mobile viewports always use the oneColumn layout. Because the default is inherited by every report and dashboard left on Global Default, it also decides whether those embeds show scroll bars. See Fit to Width and Scroll Bars before changing it.
Fit to Page applies to reports only. Power BI dashboards do not support the Fit to Page layout, so a dashboard falls back to Fit to Width whenever Fit to Page is the resolved option. For this reason the per-dashboard Display Option offers only Fit to Width and Actual Size.

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Default Page Navigation Position

The Page Navigation Position on an individual report defaults to Global Default, which follows a tenant-wide setting. To set that default:
  2. Set Default Page Navigation Position to Bottom or Left. This value is applied to every embedded Power BI report that has Page Navigation enabled and is left on Global Default.
An individual report that specifies its own Page Navigation Position overrides this global default. If neither the per-report option nor the global setting is configured, embeds fall back to Bottom, which matches the standard Power BI Service appearance.
Page navigation applies to reports only. Power BI dashboards do not have pages, so this setting has no effect on them, and no Page Navigation Position option appears on a dashboard.
The action bar overrides this setting. When a report has Enable actionbar on, Power BI always places page navigation on the left, and the Page Navigation Position value is ignored for that report — this is a Power BI platform limitation, not a Curator setting. The Page Navigation Position dropdown is disabled while the action bar is on, and keeps its saved value. To use Bottom (or to switch to Left yourself), disable the action bar on the report. See Microsoft’s embedded report settings limitations.

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Hiding Page Navigation

Reports with many pages can give up a lot of screen width to a left-hand page navigation pane. Turn on Allow viewers to hide page navigation on the report’s Display tab to let viewers collapse it, much like the Hide the Pages pane button in the Power BI Service.
  • When the pane is on the left, the button sits in the top-left corner of the report. When the pane is at the bottom, it sits in the bottom-right corner.
  • The button does not appear when Enable actionbar (or Enable Copilot) is on. Power BI then adds its own pages pane button to the action bar, and Start with page navigation hidden has no effect.
  • Clicking the button hides or re-shows the pane without reloading the report, so filters and the current page are kept.
  • Each viewer’s choice is remembered in their browser and applied the next time they open the report. Viewers who have not made a choice yet see the pane as set by Start with page navigation hidden.
  • The button does not appear on mobile viewports, which use the mobile layout.
The button is part of Curator, not Power BI, so it uses Curator’s styling rather than matching the Power BI Service.

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Mobile Layout

When the viewport is 768px or narrower, Curator automatically switches Power BI reports to the mobile-optimized MobilePortrait layout and oneColumn page view. This overrides the configured Display Option, which only applies to desktop viewports. The mobile layout uses the layout authored in Power BI Desktop or the Power BI Service. If a report does not have a mobile layout, Power BI falls back to the standard landscape layout.
To take full advantage of this feature, author a mobile layout for your Power BI report in Power BI Desktop/Service. Without one, the report will still render on mobile but will use the default desktop layout scaled to fit the screen.
Power BI dashboards also switch to oneColumn page view on mobile viewports but do not use MobilePortrait since dashboards do not support mobile layouts.

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Adding Reports to Navigation

After creating a report, add it to your site’s menu for easy access and automated authorization.

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Adding Reports to Pages

Once a Power BI Report has been added to Curator it can also be added to pages for a more dynamic layout. Embed Power BI reports in custom pages using the Page Builder.

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Security Considerations

Curator utilizes the permissions set within your Power BI tenant including both workspace-level permissions as well as direct-access permissions.

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Workspace-Level Access

When a user has access to a workspace, they automatically have access to all reports within that workspace. Curator checks workspace access to determine report visibility. Due to performance concerns we strongly recommend utilizing workspace-level access whenever possible.

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Direct Report Access

If a user does not have access to a workspace, Curator will check for direct access permissions to individual reports. This allows for more granular control over report access but can lead to performance issues due to limitations in the Power BI APIs.