Power BI’s “publish to web” feature creates serious security risks when embedded in Salesforce because it makes your dashboards publicly accessible without any authentication requirements.
Here’s why this approach exposes sensitive business data and how to implement a more secure alternative that maintains your data privacy.
CoefficientSecure Salesforce dashboard embedding with
Salesforce’sThe publish to web feature essentially creates a public URL that anyone can access, which defeats the purpose ofbuilt-in security model. When you embed these public dashboards in Salesforce, you’re potentially exposing customer data, sales figures, and other sensitive information to unauthorized users.
A better approach imports Salesforce data directly into Google Sheets while respecting your existing security permissions. This keeps your data within your organization’s ecosystem and maintains proper access controls.
How to make it work
Step 1. Set up secure data import.
Use Coefficient to import Salesforce data directly into Google Sheets. This maintains your Salesforce security model and user permissions, so users only see data they’re authorized to access in the original system.
Step 2. Configure row-level security.
Apply dynamic filters that respect user permissions by pointing filters to cell values. This creates user-specific data views without maintaining separate security configurations like Power BI requires.
Step 3. Control data sharing.
Share your Google Sheets dashboards only with authorized users within your organization. Unlike Power BI’s publish to web feature, this doesn’t create publicly accessible endpoints that could be discovered by unauthorized parties.
Step 4. Maintain audit trails.
Set up scheduled exports back to Salesforce to ensure data integrity and maintain proper audit trails. This addresses the security gaps that Power BI’s public publishing creates by keeping a record of who accessed what data and when.
Step 5. Embed securely in Lightning pages.
Add your secured Google Sheets to Salesforce Lightning pages where they inherit Salesforce’s session security. Users access dashboards through their existing Salesforce login without additional authentication requirements.
Protect your data with proper embedding
Start buildingSecurity should never be compromised for convenience. This approach gives you embedded analytics without exposing sensitive business data to the public internet.secure Salesforce dashboards that protect your organization’s data.