Power BI Service: Publishing, Sharing, RLS Security and Governance
Power BI Service: Publishing, Sharing and RLS Security is an advanced-level course of 5 lessons (about 1 h 35 min), with 16 exercises and 15 quiz questions. Prerequisites: Designing Reports and Dashboards. The course needs a Windows virtual machine with Power BI, planned for a later phase of the platform.
- Power BI
- Advanced
- 5 lessons
- 1 h 35 min
- 16 exercises
- Windows virtual machine (phase 2)
The course in brief
This course takes you from a .pbix file to an enterprise solution. You publish to workspaces with the right roles and licenses, schedule refresh with or without a gateway, distribute through apps, subscriptions or Teams, and protect data with static and dynamic row-level security. You finish with governance: deployment pipelines, PBIP and Git, sensitivity labels and certification.
What you will be able to do
- Publish a report and organize workspaces, roles and licenses
- Configure scheduled refresh, the gateway and incremental refresh
- Choose and implement the right distribution method (app, sharing, subscription, Teams)
- Create and test static and dynamic RLS with USERPRINCIPALNAME
- Set up a Dev/Test/Prod lifecycle with pipelines and PBIP/Git
- Apply governance tools: labels, certification, traceability
Syllabus: 5 lessons
- Publish a report from Power BI Desktop
- Tell apart a semantic model, a report, a dashboard and an app
- Choose the right workspace, roles and license
- 02
Refreshing Data: Scheduling, Gateway and Incremental Refresh
- Configure data source credentials and scheduled refresh
- Know when a data gateway is needed
- Understand the principle of incremental refresh
- 03
Sharing and Distributing: Apps, Sharing, Subscriptions
- Choose the right distribution method for the audience
- Publish an app with audiences
- Know the risks of publishing to the web
Power BI appsDirect sharingSubscriptionsTeams and SharePoint integration
- 04
Static and Dynamic Row-Level Security (RLS)
- Create static RLS roles in Power BI Desktop
- Implement dynamic RLS with USERPRINCIPALNAME
- Test the roles and assign them in the service
- 05
Governance and Lifecycle: Pipelines, Git, Labels, Certification
- Organize the development, test and production lifecycle
- Version a Power BI project with the PBIP format and Git
- Apply governance tools: sensitivity labels, certification, traceability
Final project
Secure Production Rollout of Sales Reporting
The retail chain wants to distribute the sales and targets report to its management and store managers. Prepare the production rollout: workspace and role architecture, a source compatible with scheduled refresh, an app with audiences, dynamic RLS by store (with full access for management), a versioned PBIP project and a go-live checklist. If some service features are not available with your account, document the planned configuration precisely.
Deliverables
- The PBIP project (or .pbix) with the RLS roles and the hidden security table
- An architecture document: workspaces, roles, groups, licenses, distribution method
- Screenshots of the View as tests (Léa: 283, Hugo: 132, management: 415, unknown: no data)
- The refresh configuration (source, gateway or not, schedule, notifications)
- The completed go-live checklist
Assessment criteria
- Correct, tested dynamic RLS, deny by default for unknown users
- Readers without an editing role (effective RLS) and access through groups
- Realistic refresh (cloud source or standard gateway) with monitoring
- Suitable distribution (app with audiences) and no Publish to web
- Controlled lifecycle: Dev/Test/Prod, versioned PBIP, label and certification considered
Frequently asked questions
Do you need a license to share a Power BI report?
Yes, generally a Pro or Premium Per User license, for the author and the readers alike. Exception: on a Fabric F64 or larger capacity, readers can view content with a free license.
When do I need a data gateway?
Whenever the published model must refresh data located on a workstation or on the internal network (local files, internal SQL servers). Cloud sources do not need one.
Does RLS apply to everyone?
No. It applies to users with read access. Workspace admins, members and contributors see all the data.
Can you version a Power BI report with Git?
Yes, with the PBIP project format, which saves the model (TMDL) and the report (PBIR) as text files. Fabric workspaces can also be synchronized with a Git repository.
This course, told for your job
Say what you want to be able to do: “Power BI Service: Publishing, Sharing and RLS Security” takes its place in your path, with examples from your field. The concepts stay those of the course.