Row-level security: possible to apply RLS on Desktop with on-premises deployment?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

As I understand the Power BI documentation on row-level security, RLS rules are defined on Power BI Desktop and subsequently applied when the report is published on Power BI Report Server.

We have a requirement for RLS to already be applied in PBI Desktop as some users should only see a limited dataset when exploring data with Power BI Desktop. Is this technically possible? I understand PBI Desktop would need to connect to PBI Report Server for the RLS rules for this to work.

If this is not possible we will need to figure out a way to do this in the DB level.

Thanks for the help!

[d_gosbell · Accepted solution]

This is not possible if your pbix file is connected to your data source in import mode (so all the data is held in the model). The only way to do RLS with Power BI Desktop is to have the rules applied outside Power BI Desktop. So either in your data source and use a direct query connection. Or build your model in SSAS (and define the RLS in that model) and use a Live Connection from Power BI Desktop.

[Anonymous]

Hi @d_gosbell,

Thanks for the response!

Why does DirectQuery vs Import matter if RLS is implemented in the data source?

[d_gosbell]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Why does DirectQuery vs Import matter if RLS is implemented in the data source?

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Because in Import mode a copy of the data is stored in the pbix file itself. So everyone that has edit access to the pbix file sees all the data stored inside it. The security on the data source is irrelevant until you do a refresh.