Enable Robust 'Test as Role' Impersonation for DirectQuery Models with SSO Data Sources

Business Problem:

For enterprise departments, data governance and security are paramount. We rely on DirectQuery with Single Sign-On (SSO) to enforce granular, source-level security on our most sensitive data (e.g., in Azure Synapse, Snowflake, or Azure SQL). While this architecture is powerful for security, it creates a significant bottleneck in our development lifecycle.

Currently, the "Test as role" feature in the Power BI Service is incompatible with SSO-enabled DirectQuery sources. This prevents our developers and analysts from being able to efficiently validate the security context of a report before deployment.

Current Limitation & Workaround:

The current workaround involves provisioning dedicated test user accounts, managing their permissions in both Power BI and the underlying data source, and performing manual end-to-end testing by logging in as each user. This process is cumbersome, slow, does not scale well, and significantly increases the friction and time required to deploy or update critical financial reports.

Proposed Solution:

Enhance the Power BI Service to allow authorized administrators and developers to use the "Test as role" functionality with SSO-enabled DirectQuery models. This would require a trusted impersonation or delegation mechanism where the Power BI Service can simulate a user's identity through to the data source for the express purpose of testing.

Implementing this feature would dramatically accelerate the development and validation of secure, enterprise-grade analytics solutions on Power BI and Microsoft Fabric, reinforcing its position as a trusted platform for sensitive data.