User's role in workspace to use Power automate flow to refresh the dataset in PBI

[skip2mylou]

Hi, 

I have a Power Automate flow that when users click a button in a Power App, will trigger the flow to refresh a Power BI dataset in Workspace A. I have given users access to the Power BI App that was published from Workspace A. Is that enough for them to be able to trigger the refresh? Do I need to give users access as Workspace Viewer, or Contributor to be able to trigger that?

I would prefer not to, as I have sensitive data in the dataset (RLS has been implemented), so I don't want the user to be able to download the file (if given the Contributor role).

Thanks!

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @skip2mylou ,

To refresh a Power BI dataset via a Power Automate flow, the user or account used to refresh needs more permissions than just “Viewer” inside the workspace. If a user is in a particular Security Group and that group has ‘Viewer’ access to the app workspace, the flow fails saying the user doesn’t have sufficient permissions. If you change the access level to one higher i.e. ‘Contributor’ access to that Security group, then the users of that Security Group would have powers to delete content and access more information than needed because they should only have read access.

Refresh your Power BI dataset using Microsoft Flow | Microsoft Power BI Blog | Microsoft Power BI

A potential solution to this issue is to use a service principal. A service principal is an app registered for the organization and it doesn’t depend on a user. This way, you can manage higher level permissions without giving individual users unnecessary access.

Solved: Refresh Power BI Dataset using Power Automate (flo... - Microsoft Fabric Community

Best Regards