Analysis versus dashboard
An analysis is the editable working document. A dashboard is a published, read-only snapshot of it shared with readers.
Publishing does not link them permanently — you can keep editing the analysis and republish when ready. That separation means readers are not exposed to work in progress, which is a genuine advantage over tools where editing is live.
Author and reader
QuickSight distinguishes Authors, who create analyses and datasets, and Readers, who view dashboards and interact with controls. Readers cost considerably less, and in a session-capacity plan are billed per session rather than per user.
Getting this split right is most of QuickSight's cost story — a few authors and many readers is much cheaper than licensing everyone as an author.
Sharing
Share a dashboard with users or groups, choosing whether they can only view or can also save a copy as their own analysis.
Sharing the dashboard is not the same as sharing the dataset. A reader can see the dashboard without access to the underlying data — which is usually what you want.
Email reports
Dashboards can be emailed on a schedule as a PDF, or as an attached report.
As elsewhere, the emailed version renders with the default filter state, not whatever anyone last selected. Set sensible defaults before scheduling.
Embedding
QuickSight dashboards embed in applications and portals via the embedding SDK, with anonymous embedding available for public-facing use.
That is where row-level security and session tags matter most, since the embedding application is responsible for asserting who the viewer is.