Forum Discussion
Global Datasets and Datasources
I want to define datasources and datasets globally and have them available to all users when the log into Power BI. I also want to have the visibility determined by user id.
I've been told this is possible in Power BI, but I haven't seen yet any features that provides these capabilities. Power BI seems geared mainly towards sharing spreadsheets in a peer-to-peer manner. Can someone point me in the right direction?
16 Replies
You can create a content pack with a data set only (no dashboards and reports).
Here is how:
http://businessintelligist.com/2015/07/21/content-packs-can-now-be-created-in-powerbi-com/
That looks promising...thanks!
I would "assume" that you should be able to just publish a dataset, however in all the testing I've done with Org Content Packs it would appear you need to include at least one report and dashboard in order for it to work. If you don't include all 3, the dataset and or report show up, but the load spinner just keeps going.
So - as of right now, no you can't do this with Org Content Packs
If this is just a bug, and you should be able to just publish a dataset, then the answer changes to "yes" if you are using something like tabular models where you can control the permissions on a different level.
I just published a content pack with a data set only and was able to connecto to it, not sure why it does not work for you. I would say the answer is Yes
The person who was telling me how this can work was assuming that the Azure SQL server would be filtering the rows based on the user credentials, so that some users would see a subset of the data.
It's not clear to me how this can work; it looks to me that Power BI copies the entire dataset and so SQL server no longer has any ability to filter rows by user id.
SQL Azure and SQL Analysis Services are a direct connect mode, no data is cashed in PowerBI.com, row level security certainly works with Analysis Services, but I don't think it will work with SQL Azure becuase user name and password are part of the connection information.
