Is it even possible for employees to self serve and create their own reports on Service?

[RyanS32229]

Hi all,

I have visions of allowing our employees to access datasets freely within Power BI Service (not Desktop for complicated reasons) and make reports off it, but this doesn't seem viable within Power BI at the moment.

I can create a workspace with the dataset in it, and then invite all employees to the workspace and give them editing access in order to let them create reports off this dataset. However this also gives them the opportunity to delete the dataset in that workspace, which would delete every single report that has been created in that workspace.

My simple question is: Is there a safe way to allow any employee to create reports within Service?

[v-juanli-msft]

Hi

you want a safe way to allow any employee to create reports within Service, which means they have access to the dataset and can create reports with this dataset but they can’t delete the dataset. Right?

In your scenario, you can create a content pack including the dataset, then publish it to all employees. They can get this content pack and make a copy, so they can create their own reports with the dataset.

Please refer to these articles to know more about what is organization content pack and how to create and publish it.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-organizational-content-pack-introduction

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-organizational-content-pack-create-and-publish

Best Regards

Maggie

[RyanS32229]

Hi, and thanks for your responses.

@v-juanli-msft

Are content packs not being phased out? Is this a viable long-term solution?

Furthermore if I make a change to the dataset, if they have just made a copy they will not receive the changes I'm assuming?

[v-juanli-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi

If you make changes to the dataset, you need publishe a new version of the content pack, for person who did customize the content pack, he receives a notification that there's a new version. She can go to AppSource and get the updated content pack without losing her personalized version. She'll now have two versions: her personalized version and the updated content pack.

As for the first question, the Power BI Team has no official declareation to phase out content packs until now.

Best Regards

Maggie

[Anonymous]

Not in the manner you are describing, no.  You could create individual workspaces for each person or group.  To avoid a problem of data siloing, you could create your Power BI model and upload it to Azure Analysis services.  Then when you upload a dataset into the their workspace, that dataset is simply a live connection to the Analysis Services data model.  This would provide you with the single refresh but also provide the user with the same field access you have now and would also remove the risk of a person effecting someone elses report.