Skip to main content
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Join the FabCon + SQLCon recap series. Up next: Power BI, Real-Time Intelligence, IQ and AI, and Data Factory take center stage. All sessions are available on-demand after the live show. Register now

Reply
echerian
New Member

Data Flow or Data Set

Hi,

 

We have requirement to expose data from one database table in Power BI Service. As the users are not given access to database, the option availabe is to publish that data as a dataflow or Power BI Datatset. What would be the best option for this scenario ? Should it be a dataflow or a dataset.

 

Background : I prefer to do this in dataflow. By my experince with dataflow is not great. So I want to check with community how to handle this scenario.

 

Thanks

 

1 REPLY 1
ibarrau
Super User
Super User

Hi. Considering you just can't use database, because the best idea would be letting user only view that single table of the DB, the dataflow is the best alternative. Dataflow will let you import a single table for many users. You own any base transformation and they can filter or change that later. Datasets won't let you do all that. Users will need composite model everytime they use the table as direct query. That can be tricky and reduce performance.

Dataflows might not have the best performance when processing their transformations, but once it's loaded, it's great for users.

I hope that helps,


If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

Happy to help!

LaDataWeb Blog

Helpful resources

Announcements
April Power BI Update Carousel

Power BI Monthly Update - April 2026

Check out the April 2026 Power BI update to learn about new features.

New to Fabric survey Carousel

New to Fabric Survey

If you have recently started exploring Fabric, we'd love to hear how it's going. Your feedback can help with product improvements.

Power BI DataViz World Championships carousel

Power BI DataViz World Championships - June 2026

A new Power BI DataViz World Championship is coming this June! Don't miss out on submitting your entry.

FabCon and SQLCon Highlights Carousel

FabCon &SQLCon Highlights

Experience the highlights from FabCon & SQLCon, available live and on-demand starting April 14th.