How to Configure Email Subscription Links in Power BI Report Server
In the realm of data reporting and business intelligence, Microsoft's Power BI stands out as a robust solution, empowering organizations to visualize data, share insights, and make informed decisions. The Power BI Report Server, in particular, offers the flexibility of hosting your reports on-premises. A nifty feature within this environment is the ability to set up email subscriptions, automatically sending reports to stakeholders at predefined intervals. However, the URLs sent in these emails link back to the server using the default server name – which may not be the most user-friendly or accessible URL. In this tutorial, we'll navigate through the process of altering these URLs to use an alias by editing the rsreportserver.config
file, thereby enhancing the accessibility and professionalism of your emailed reports.
Why Change the Original Web-Link to an Alias?
Before diving into the technical details, let's clarify why changing the original web-link to an alias can be advantageous:
- Brand Consistency: Using an alias allows the URL to reflect your organization's branding, strengthening brand recognition and trust.
- User-friendliness: An alias can provide a shorter, more memorable URL, improving the experience for report recipients.
- Security: Hiding the direct server name from emails can add an extra layer of obscurity, providing slight security by obscurity.
- Flexibility: Should your server location change, you only need to update the alias rather than contacting every report recipient with a new URL.
Step-by-Step Guide to Change the URL
Prerequisite: Ensure you have administrative access to the Power BI Report Server and the server where it's hosted.
Step 1: Locate the rsreportserver.config
File
The rsreportserver.config
file holds the configuration settings for your Power BI Report Server. By default, you can find it in the following directory:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Power BI Report Server\PBIRS\ReportServer\
It's advisable to create a backup of the rsreportserver.config
file before making changes, to safeguard against any unintended consequences.
Step 2: Edit the rsreportserver.config
File
Open the rsreportserver.config
file with a text editor running as an administrator. Locate the <UrlRoot>
tag within the file. This tag specifies the root URL that will be used in links within email subscriptions.
If the <UrlRoot>
tag is not present, you can add it within the <Service>
tag. If it already exists, you might need to update its value.
Step 3: Input the Alias URL
Replace or insert the following line with your alias URL:
<UrlRoot>http://alias/ReportServer/</UrlRoot>
Here, http://alias/ReportServer/
should be replaced with the actual URL you wish to use as an alias. Ensure the URL is correct and accessible from the network of the email recipients.
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Step 4: Save and Restart the Service
After updating the rsreportserver.config
file, save your changes and close the text editor. For the changes to take effect, you must restart the Power BI Report Server service. This can typically be done via the Windows Services manager, by finding the Power BI Report Server
service, right-clicking it, and selecting Restart
.
Verification and Troubleshooting
After restarting the service, test the email subscription feature to ensure that the new alias is used in the URLs. If there are issues, confirm the following:
- The URL is correctly formatted in the
rsreportserver.config
file.
- The alias URL is correctly configured in your DNS or network settings to point to the Power BI Report Server.
- There are no network or firewall settings preventing access to the alias URL.
Conclusion
Editing the rsreportserver.config
file to change the original web-link into an alias for email subscriptions in Power BI Report Server is a straightforward yet impactful enhancement. This modification not only improves user experience by providing cleaner, more memorable URLs but also aligns with broader organizational branding and security practices.
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