Change the SQL Database Name of a Data Source based on User ID

[ninsights]

I have 50 distributors (sellers of our products). Each distributor has as [Company ID].

Each distributor has their own database on the same SQL Server. The database structures are the same.

What I would like to do is to have Power BI recognize the user and dynamically choose the correct database name for that user.

For example, if I have the following:

if [userID] = [Distributor1] ,
   then the data source is [Database1]   (set server name = "mrl" and database name = Database1)

if [userID] = [Distributor2] ,
   then the data source is [Database2]   (set server name = "mrl" and database name = Database2)
...and so on for all 50 distributors.

Is this possible in Power BI?

Thank you for any assistance you can provide.

Tracey.

[edhans]

Glad I could help @ninsights 

[edhans · Accepted solution]

You might be able to do this if you used direct query and looked at this post by @GilbertQ - Power Query (M) – Passing Parameters dynamically to a SQL Server Query - Data Analytics | FourMoo an...

But not sure how performance would be, and what things Direct Query will mess up for you - you cannot use Power BI Time Intelligence.

What I would be more inclined to do is create a view on the server that combines all relevant fact tables into one, with a new field that indicates the user name, then use RLS to filter the data at the report level.

[ninsights]

Thank you @edhans for this information and letting me know that time intelligence won't work under that scenario. That's very important for this dashboard so I will ask IT to create the view you suggested that I can use with RLS. I greatly appreciate your response.