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Access on-prem Report Server from your Power BI Mobile app with Azure Active Directory Application Proxy

Headshot of article author Maya Shenhav

I’m excited to share that in this week release of Power BI Mobile apps, we’ve made it easier for organizations to enable Power BI Mobile users to access their PBIRS reports they need from anywhere. We partnered with Azure Active Directory team to integrate Power BI mobile applications with Azure Active Directory (AAD) Application Proxy to connect their reports from their mobile app, without the need to setup complex on-premise configuration.

In today’s digital workplace, people need access to their business reports anytime and from anywhere. That means they need to have secure access to their business reports, even if they are on the go, away from the corporate network boundaries, and their reports are hosted in an on-prem Report Server. Organizations that already have Azure AD, can now leverage this integration to have seamless and secure access from the Power BI Mobile app to their on-premises Report Server.

Why use Azure Active Directory Application Proxy with Power BI Report Server and Mobile apps?

Using Azure Active Directory Application Proxy removes the need to manage you own web application proxy in order to allow secure access to Report Server from Power BI Mobile apps.

In addition, by implementing Azure App Proxy with Power BI Report Server and Power BI Mobile apps, the following scenarios can be also be enabled:

  • Accessing Report Server with your Azure AD identity proving a single sign on experience.
  • Applying Intune app protection policy to protect your company data, like PIN to open the app, control the sharing of data between apps, and prevent the saving of company app data to a personal storage location.
  • Use certificate for multi factor authentication.
  • Restrict access to Report server based on conditional access rules.

How does it work?

Azure AD Application Proxy provides users secure remote access to on-premises resources. It is simple to use and configure, without requiring changes to your network infrastructure, and allows you to secure your applications with all the security features of Azure AD. This allows you to protect your on-premises Report Server endpoints with Azure AD authentication and conditional access policies.

The Power BI mobile application can then use the connection provided by Application Proxy and authenticate and access the Report Server. Users don’t have to install additional software on their devices or do any additional configuration to access their reports.

How to get started?

To get started follow our complete step by step guide “Enable remote access to Power BI Mobile with Azure AD Application Proxy”. This integration is available for both the iOS and Android Power BI mobile applications.

If you are new to Application Proxy and what to learn more about its secure remote access benefits and how it can help you extend Azure AD to your on-prem environment check out our whitepaper at https://aka.ms/whyappproxy.

As always, we’d love to receive any suggestions or feedback you have, so please comment below.