Three distribution mechanisms in BI Portal get confused often enough to be worth separating explicitly: Publish (visibility inside BI Reports), Share (a public link outside any login), and Export / scheduled mail (moving a snapshot outside the platform entirely).
Publish vs Share — not the same feature
Publish makes a view appear, for authorized users, inside BI Reports — it depends on folder assignment and Permissions. Share is a separate, independent action from the designer's toolbar: it generates a public link that works without any login at all, optionally with an expiration date, and can be invalidated at any time by disabling sharing again. Publishing a view does not automatically make it shareable, and sharing a view does not require it to be published.
PDF export
- From the "⋯" menu on the runtime screen, choose Export PDF
- Pick a quality level — Medium (2x, small file), Good (3x, the usual recommendation), or High (4x, print quality)
- A landscape, screenshot-based PDF downloads immediately
Emailing a PDF — instant vs periodic
The email dialog has four tabs: Recipients (addresses or a defined mail group across To/CC/BCC), Content (subject and body), Periodic (a scheduled job definition), and PDF Options (quality for the instant send). The distinction that matters operationally: an instant send attaches a screenshot-based PDF exactly like the manual export; a periodic send generates the PDF server-side through a scheduled job, not a screenshot — which is what makes recurring, unattended reporting reliable.
Why it matters
Picking the wrong distribution mechanism causes real problems: a Share link left without an expiration date is a standing public access point; an instant-send habit used for a "send this every Monday" need means someone has to remember to click a button every week instead of a scheduled job doing it. Matching the mechanism to the actual distribution need is what keeps both security and reliability intact.