Can people without Zebra BI see Zebra BI charts in their Excel?

If you send the (original) reports made with Zebra BI to users that don’t have Zebra BI installed, they will be able to see the reports, but they won’t be able to change the values. Depending on the version, Excel might also pop up a formula error message.

However, there are plenty of options for you to efficiently share your reports, dashboards or presentations with other users.

1. Static reporting: Export to PowerPoint, PDF or static Excel

Instead of sending original Excel files to other people without Zebra BI, you can easily

  • export your report to PowerPoint or create linked PowerPoint slides,
  • publish a secure PDF document or
  • export as a static Excel workbook

These files can be read by anybody. Furthermore, reports in PowerPoint or PDF formats are also “locked” for editing so there’s no danger for the readers to accidentally spoil the design, change or delete any of the formulas/values or mess around with source data or data queries.

Zebra BI export to PowerPoint PDF or Excel

It just takes 1 click in Zebra to do that and you can even use Export PowerPoint with Links to create updatable PowerPoint slides. In this way you can reuse the same PowerPoint slide deck every month and just update the links when your figures in original Excel workbooks are refreshed.

For maximum protection of files in static reporting, use Export to PDF option in Zebra BI. You can create a multiple page PDF document from your entire workbook in one simple step. If you prefer to add additional headlines, comments or other shapes in PowerPoint, that you can first export or link your Zebra BI reports to PowerPoint and then simply use Save As Pdf option in MS PowerPoint.

To learn more about exporting from Zebra BI, please read

2. Dynamic reporting: Zebra BI Dynamic Viewer

If you want other users to open your Zebra BI reports directly in MS Excel with fully updatable charts, then they require a full Zebra BI license or a Zebra BI Dynamic Viewer license.

This option is especially interesting when you expect other users to interact with the data, e.g. change slicers, filter pivot tables, make simulations by changing or updating some numbers, etc. It allows you to build and deploy fully interactive Excel dashboards (also linked directly to data sources like DWH, SAP BW, OLAP cubes or other databases).

To get a quote for Zebra BI Dynamic Viewer, please contact us at support@zebra.bi.

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