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ninsights's avatar
ninsights
Icon for Helper III rankHelper III
4 years ago
Solved

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

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.

3 Replies

  • edhans's avatar
    edhans
    Icon for Community Champion rankCommunity Champion

    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 and Power BI

    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's avatar
      ninsights
      Icon for Helper III rankHelper III

      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.