Which Assign workspaces is best to select in Premium?

[HarryT]

Hi there,

We just lit up Power BI Premium server.  With that I'm going through the Premium setup:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-admin-premium-manage#assign-a-workspace-to-a-capac...

I just have a question on Assign workspaces in Power BI Premium server.  Right now I have 3 options:

1. Workspaces by users
2. Specific workspaces
3. The entire organization's workspaces
   I am just wondering which one we should start with?
   The idea is to have anyone in the company be able to publish and share dashboards.  But I also worry about this getting too big and all resources gone without our control.  But then again I want the ease of use for people to publish and share away.
   Any thoughts on this topic?
   Thanks,
   Harry

[TomMartens]

Hey @HarryT ,

this is a difficult question, for a lot of reasons 🙂

Assuming you are a Power BI Service Admin ...

When you say "... have anyone in the company be able to publish and share ..." does it also mean, sharing content from a specific "My Workspace" or does this mean, publish to Power BI App workspace, and allow users to access the content of this workspace via an App.

The idea of sharing content (the idea of MSFT, and I like that), is to use an App Workspace for a smaller teams, that develops the content of this workspace, and publish an App based on this content to a larger audience.

Currently I'm working for a large enterprise with a lot of Power BI Desktop users, who publish their content to a dedicated App workspace.

Publishing content to an App workspace requires a Pro licencse.

To stay in control, we established the following process:

• When someone wants to share content this user needs a workspace or has to be a member of an already existing workspace. If the user wants to have his "own" App Workspace (I'm not talking about "My Workspace). This user has to submit a form (let's say a form based on a Sharepoint List), next to the name of the workspace, the user also has to provide a 2nd user.
  
  A new request will be captured by an Azure Logic App, that executes an Azrue Runbook. This Runbook uses Power BI Powershell commands to create the workspace, and also assigns the workspace to the Premium capacity. Of course the request has to be approved by the manager of the requestor
  This may sound like overkill, but the process works really well. And due to this process, people start thinking if they really need an App Workspace.
• For publishing content to an App workspace, a Power BI Pro license is required. This license has to be requested by a 2nd form, here it's mandatory to provide the name of an existing workspace.

Currently there are almost ~1000 active workspaces, I guess these are many workspaces, but I also know that there are companies that have 30000 workspaces.

As an Power BI Service admin I would recommend the option "Specific Workspaces". You can change this later, but it's difficult to get things straight after things have gone wild 🙂

Hopefully this provides some additional insight.

Regards,

Tom

[HarryT]

Hi Tom,

Do you use Teams workspace or Power bi workspaces?

Seems like there is more control using a power bi workspace.  I know you then assign them to the Premium server.

Just was curious on your thoughts as I wants to have it established off the get go.

Thanks

[HarryT]

Hi Tom,

Thanks a lot for your reply.  Yes I am an admin.  Well the 0365 team has made me an admin to the Power BI product and I have the abilities to do everything but assign PBI Pro licences.  

We have 50 Pro licenses.  Your post has gotten me to think more of the desired workflow.  Whether it's using Team spaces to publish to or let users publish from their my workspace.

A Microsoft rep we deal with wrote me last night saying option 1 Workspaces by users, is best to use.

Tracking an intake form for a Pro license is something I plan to do.  Using a ticketing system we have instead of a form.  But same idea.  I do like the Azure Logic App and Azrue Runboo idea.  I will have to research these more.  As I want to contain where everything is being uploaded to.  In QlikView we were able to control all of these quite easily.

I am thinking of using the Specific workspaces option now instead.

Just need to research more on how exactly this option works.

Any other tips you can give is much appreciated.  I agree setting the foundation now will help in the future.

Thanks,

Harry