How to use RLS and Export underlying data Without Duplicating Reports

[chelly911]

I work for a university Group that oversees eight universities. We have a Power BI report that includes data for all of them. Management wants each university to access only its own data while still being able to export the underlying data.

The issue is that Row-Level Security (RLS) requires a "Viewer" role, but exporting underlying data requires at least a "Contributor" role. However, when users have the Contributor role, RLS no longer applies.

The previous person handling this solved it by creating eight separate copies of the report, each filtered to show only the relevant university's data. However, this means that every time a change is needed, I have to update all eight reports individually.

Is there a more efficient way to achieve this in Power BI?

[chelly911 · Accepted solution]

Hi! The solution is to enable the Power BI 'Build' permission. This allows me to assign the Viewer role with RLS applied, and they can still export the underlying data.

[v-karpurapud]

Hi @chelly911 

I wanted to check if you had the opportunity to review the information provided. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions. If my response has addressed your query, please accept it as a solution and give a 'Kudos' so other members can easily find it.

Thank you.

[v-karpurapud]

Hi @chelly911 

May I ask if you have resolved this issue? If so, please mark the helpful reply and accept it as the solution. This will be helpful for other community members who have similar problems to solve it faster.

Thank you.

[v-karpurapud]

Hi @chelly911 

Could you please confirm if your query have been resolved the solution provided by @Anonymous  ? If they have, kindly mark the helpful response and accept it as the solution. This will assist other community members in resolving similar issues more efficiently.

Thank you

[Anonymous]

Hi @chelly911 ,

Thanks for your time.

In Power BI Service, you can export data from a visual.

You can export data from a visual with RLS. The account with viewer role can successfully export data.

Export data from a Power BI visualization - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Best Regards,
Stephen Tao

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