Skip to main content
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Earn the coveted Fabric Analytics Engineer certification. 100% off your exam for a limited time only!

Reply
carlol
Helper IV
Helper IV

PowerBI Distribution

Best practice on Distrubtion?

 

Brief

I have 60 - 80 Reports , simplistic requirement 

 

  • Each report is identical with the exception of the filters, Country & Country Region (30 countries / 6 Regions) 
  • Each region , country has an audience, each consumer (Report viewer) cannot view/ access another countries , regions data/report

Implementation

I have a few options, take for granted I have security groups setup in Azure AD & Comsumers assigned to their associated group

 

  1. RLS Static -- Assign Static Roles and manage access in the Service 
  2. RLS Dynamic -- Create Role/User Tables to define access on runtime
  3. Workspaces: create one workspace per audience and assign access permissions to the workspace or app, use query parameters to filter the data

Pros/ Cons of each , simplist approach is via option 3 workspaces (I am leaning towards) , what deters me is the duplication of Content (may not be too bad , as I will sperate the PBIX from the Data Model) 30 reports will source from 1 data model vs 30, filter by query parameter , easier to manage access and flexibilty of creating Custom content specific for the Audience , Trying to please everybody with a one shoe fits all ,I might get into difficulity consolidating very quickly    

 

RLS Static -- I noticed when using bookmarks to create fancy pop out Menus, the RLS was not implemented intial load , the Comsumer could bypass the RLS restriciton , work around would be to remove the Filter but some Comsumers have access to all Countries , I want to all them to filter by Country (Maybe I am missing a setting , Need to look at the Data check box)

 

To leverage off peoples experience , what approach would members recommend ?

3 REPLIES 3
Greg_Deckler
Super User
Super User

@carlol Most maintainable solution is to use RLS. Would ditch the fancy pop-out menus if it were me although for the bookmarks did you turn off the Data option and so that might be causing it?


@ me in replies or I'll lose your thread!!!
Instead of a Kudo, please vote for this idea
Become an expert!: Enterprise DNA
External Tools: MSHGQM
YouTube Channel!: Microsoft Hates Greg
Latest book!:
Mastering Power BI 2nd Edition

DAX is easy, CALCULATE makes DAX hard...

Thanks , In SSRS days RLS was the go to option ; I am am advocate of controlling access via tables

*I need to take a look at the Data Option 

 

What got me thinking was the MS Article 

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-ie/power-bi/guidance/rls-guidance

Avoid using RLS, whenever it makes sense to do so. If you have only a small number of simplistic RLS rules that apply static filters, consider publishing multiple datasets instead. None of the datasets define roles because each dataset contains data for a specific report user audience, which has the same data permissions. Then, create one workspace per audience and assign access permissions to the workspace or app.

For example, a company that has just two sales regions decides to publish a dataset for each sales region to different workspaces. The datasets don't enforce RLS. They do, however, use query parameters to filter source data. This way, the same model is published to each workspace—they just have different dataset parameter values. Salespeople are assigned access to just one of the workspaces (or published apps).

 

Hi @carlol ,

 

RLS does have some drawbacks, but it is indeed a bit more convenient and flexible. If you don't want to use RLS,  maybe your Solution 3 is the only option.  there seems no better solution in Power BI at this stage...

 

Has your problem been solved for now ? If it has been solved, please mark the correct reply as the standard answer to help the other members find it more quickly.Thank you very much for your kind cooperation!

 

Hope it helps,


Community Support Team _ Caitlyn Yan


If this post helps then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

 

Helpful resources

Announcements
April AMA free

Microsoft Fabric AMA Livestream

Join us Tuesday, April 09, 9:00 – 10:00 AM PST for a live, expert-led Q&A session on all things Microsoft Fabric!

March Fabric Community Update

Fabric Community Update - March 2024

Find out what's new and trending in the Fabric Community.

Top Solution Authors