The administration of workspace access and security features in Power BI Service is critical. It must be approached systematically in order to maintain the integrity of the data and facilitate its accessibility to the various teams. In this regard, a few tips on effective management of workspace access and security roles are provided below:
Identify Workspace Roles and Permissions
Make full use of the workspace roles provided in Power BI, which are Admin, Member, Contributor, and Viewer, to control user access levels. For instance, stakeholders whose role only involves report watching may be allocated Viewer access rather than a Contributor or Member role, which is meant for team members who are in the process of building reports or datasets. Roles assigned to users must be subjected to periodic reviews to confirm whether they still correspond to the specific user’s duties. Do not awkwardly give admin rights to people who do not require them, as this allows them free reign over the workspace.
Activate Object-Level Security (OLS)
Use OLS to prevent sensitive information from being disclosed. For example, avoid making certain tables and columns in common data sets visible to specific users. This ensures users with access to the same report will only see information according to their scope. Maximize the use of Object-Level Security with Row-Level Security (RLS) for better restriction on the output as per the user's role or region.
Embrace Best Practices in Workplace Arrangement
Workplace contact lists should distribute roles to individuals who will participate in carrying out and communicating about specific activities. Foster the use of shared semantic models to mitigate the problem of proliferation of the same datasets and, more so, the data definition. In order to minimize the risk of data leakage, soft copy report templates like template apps should be created for external use after modification of the application. Lastly, develop a workspace structure in forms, for example, geographical units, projects, or teams, to enhance report and dataset management as well as access control to them.
Following these procedures will help you develop an appropriate teamwork setup with suitable risk management that ensures everyone has the right mix of access and confidentiality of information.
