The course is part of this learning path
Typically the life cycle of a Power BI dataset doesn't end with publishing. This course looks at managing Power BI datasets after they have been deployed. More often than not, the source data changes regularly, so we look at updating functionality available within the Power BI service and other cloud-based methods for keeping your data fresh. Not all source data is cloud-based and readily accessible to the Power BI service, so we'll see how to use data gateways to access on-premises data, which ironically also includes data residing on cloud-hosted virtual machines.
Sometimes you'll need to grant access to datasets beyond just viewing the data. We see how you can permit users and user groups to repurpose a dataset for reports they publish. Row-level security groups are a good way to partition data for different audiences, but assigning domain users to each group can be tedious. You'll see how to assign users to row-level security groups by leveraging Office 365 user group membership. The course finishes by going through the global options in Power BI Desktop to see how to customize the user experience and improve performance.
Learning Objectives
- Learn how to implement a data gateway to access on-premises data sources
- Learn to map Office 365 user groups to Power BI row-level security groups
- Permit other report designers to use a deployed dataset for their own purposes
- Understand the different options for keeping deployed data fresh
- Learn about the global file options in Power BI Desktop
Intended Audience
This course is designed for anyone who wants to learn how to manage their Power BI datasets after they have been deployed.
Prerequisites
To get the most out of this course, you should be comfortable using Power BI desktop and have some knowledge of publishing reports to PowerBI.com
Let's start by adding access to the OnPremData workspace. I'll expand the workspaces node, right-click the OnPremData ellipsis menu, and select Workspace access. Then we add a user from our domain and give them viewer access. I'll close the workspace access pane and open another browser logged into Power BI as Nicky, the user now with shared access. View access enables them to view the report and not the dataset within OnPremData. Let's see what the report looks like for Nicky. Ahhh. This dataset has row-level security, so I'll need to add Nicky to the groups that have been assigned to the row-level security roles. We can do that in the Office 365 Admin center.
Under active users, I'll assign Nicky to the SAM distribution and mail-enabled groups. Hopefully, it won't take an hour for that to take effect. Great, so hitting refresh a couple of times did the trick. Nicky still doesn't have access to the dataset, and viewing permission isn't going to allow that, so I'll change the workspace permission from viewer to contributor. Refreshing Nicky's OnPremData workspace now shows the SalesAndMargin dataset. Because I've set user permissions on the workspace, I can only add and remove additional permissions on the dataset. I can't remove access to the dataset, and dataset access is determined by the type of permissions granted on the workspace. A workspace viewer can only view reports, not datasets. You don't have to give access to a workspace to enable access to a dataset. I'll remove Nicky's access from OnPremData, and she sees nothing now. Going back to the SalesAndMargin dataset, you can share it via the share link on the top toolbar or the share dataset button on the right. When sharing, we get a pop-up where we specify the user we want to share with, along with checkboxes to specify whether they can share the dataset and have permission to build content with the data.
I won't bother sending a notification email. When we go to the dataset, we see Nicky has read, reshare and build permissions. Looking at OnPremData access, the Nicky user is nowhere to be seen. In this scenario, Nicky can no longer see the dataset within the OnPremData workspace. In fact, she can't see OnPremData at all but can see the dataset within datasets. The SalesAndMargin report appears within "Shared with me." We can remove access through the permissions ellipsis menu. Because we didn't explicitly assign access to the associated report, when we remove access to the dataset, access to the report is also removed.
Hallam is a software architect with over 20 years experience across a wide range of industries. He began his software career as a Delphi/Interbase disciple but changed his allegiance to Microsoft with its deep and broad ecosystem. While Hallam has designed and crafted custom software utilizing web, mobile and desktop technologies, good quality reliable data is the key to a successful solution. The challenge of quickly turning data into useful information for digestion by humans and machines has led Hallam to specialize in database design and process automation. Showing customers how leverage new technology to change and improve their business processes is one of the key drivers keeping Hallam coming back to the keyboard.