Deploying a shared data source - best practice

[Anonymous]

I am planning to deploy a global report for in power bi service.  in addition to the global report, i am also going to have certain power users access the data source so they can build off of that and customize additional reports for their region.

My challenge is, in order to share the data source so that the power users can create a publish regional/customized reports they can only publish reports in the same workspace that the data source exists.  That won't work because we have global standard and regional customized work and if every region published their one-off report, it would get confusing for the other regional users.

As far as i am aware, you can't hide a report for certain users in a workspace.  This would be ideal, but i don't think this is an option.

Another option would be to publish the data source to a global workspace and then one to each of the region's work spaces.  this is technically possible, but i don't like the idea of having the same data source exist in a dozen+ locations (more to manage and not good practice to have duplicates).

So my question is, how can i best execute a shared data source but give my regions some sense of flexiblity for their regional work without impacting the other regions.

[v-juanli-msft]

Hi @Anonymous

Could you take a look at "power bi dataflows"?

It may suit your scenario.

Reference:

http://radacad.com/what-are-the-use-cases-of-dataflow-for-you-in-power-bi

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-dataflows-overview

Best Regards

Maggie

Community Support Team _ Maggie Li
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[Anonymous]

Hi Maggie,

I have been exploring data flows a bit.  While it looks like you can access a data flow from one workspace and publish to another, it is missing a few critical things...

1. the data flow only allows me to transform the data, not build a model connecting the relevant tables.

2. i can't write any DAX as the model doesn't exist yet

3. there is no row level security.

While data flows looks promising, it is still missing the critical piece of building the model.

[v-juanli-msft]

Hi @Anonymous

What you list are not possible with dataflow currently.

To work with DAX, relationships, RLS, you could connect the dataflows as a data source to power bi desktop.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/desktop-connect-dataflows

How about this method?

create report with Power BI Desktop,

then upload the pbix file to sharepoint online,

next you could connect to this pbix in sharepoint online with power bi dataflow.

Best regards

Maggie

[Anonymous]

@v-juanli-msft

if i do the sharepoint solution, how does the data stay up to date.  So i publish the PBIX to a sharepoint site, and connect to that data source.  Also, since RLS is applied in the Service, how would the RLS work if the file is stored in SharePoint?