Power BI Workflow recommendations.

[maracles]

Hi, I'm trying to organise the best possible workflow for our organisation and would like some advise as I'm running into steps that seem unecessary work.

Summary

The vast majority of our data comes from a MySQL server and I shape all of the data on my PC using Power BI Desktop. We use a single dataset in which I have created a large numer of pages full of our data and visualisations. The .PBX file contains all the pages I need for all departments e.g. Accounts, Sales, Delivery etc.

Publication

Given how much easier Power BI Desktop is to use I make all updates and tweaks to pages and visuals via that, rather than online. This however causes issues when I publish. I currently publishto My Workspace and then do sharing from within Power BI.

My problem now is that I have a single dataset and a single report containing data for multiple departments. If I stick any one of the visuals or pages onto a dashboard and share it either via a content pack, or via link/email then I have a problem. I can create separate content packs or dashboards specific to any department however anyone can then click through and see the report that contains all data for all departments (a huge no).

Potential Solutions

Multiple datasets do not work for me. This would be far too much upkeep to make sure that both datasets are up-to-date.

I next looked into creating multiple reports from my dataset. This helps in terms of isolating data from different departments, I can create a report per department and only share the data I want.  There are substantial negatives though:

- My .pbx file contains all pages and visuals for all reports. However if I tweak a visual, or add a new one I can only publish to a single report on PowerBI.com, meaning that I have to recrate that visual, or make tweaks in my other reports manually in Power BI.com - a huge pain.

For example, if I change the colour of a chart in my .pbx file, I then publish it and this will update my original report. I then however have to remember to go into any other report that contains that visual and manually tweak that colour. This is a recipe for missing something when lots of changes are being made.  

If anyone can recommend a better workflow that would be much appreciated.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@maracles In addition to @ankitpatira's suggestion of RLS (which I agree with) for limiting exposure to data that shouldn't be seen. But if you have different layouts and reports for each department, those are seperate entities that you will have to manage. I would make sure that you have multiple copies of your main report (as backups), and also suggest that rather than deploy to your workspace, that you push the report into a Group workspace and have at least one other person have access to the reports. If this really is for your company, there should be no single point of failure (or at least try to mitigate as many areas as possible)

[maracles]

@ankitpatira and @Seth_C_Bauer thanks for both of your suggestions. I haven't explored RLS security yet but will take a look. The idea of publishing to different reports could work so I will also explore that.

Out of interest. If I published to a group workspace the full report, then online deleted some of the pages from that report. When I next published an update from my Power BI Desktop to that workspace, would it only update the remaining pages or would it add again those that I deleted?

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@maracles It will add the pages back into the report.

[ankitpatira]

@maracles

Maybe you should consider Row Level Security in powerbi. This will allow you to have one dataset, one report but users can access data on report based on their department. So ideally you will have roles for each department in RLS. Add users to those roles and limit rows in your dataset by department. Next time users access your report they will see same report but data would be for their departments only. Hope this make sense.