Power BI 'Act As functionality'

DebbieE

I have been asked this question from users coming from Oracle OBIEE for report users

(Currently Power BI Premium would be the one being used)

"The Act As functionality in Oracle BI Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) allows users to act as another user, enabling them to access and manipulate data and objects that the original user has permissions to. This feature is particularly useful for IT support staff or managers who need to troubleshoot or delegate work to other users. To enable Act As functionality, users must assign the Proxy privilege to the user and configure the necessary session variables and custom message templates. It is important to note that the Act As functionality must be enabled by the administrator and configured correctly to avoid errors"

I wanted to just ask if anyone know anything about this kind of functionality for Power BI? and If not. Are there people out there who need this functionality and how do they get around it?

We are using Row Level Security and Object level (Column) Security for the reporting

A good example would be. The CEO of a company can see everything. Person A Has access to group A and B. They also cant see DOB or Address. the CEO needs them to look at reports as if they were them and would like to get Person A to 'act as' themselves so they can see all the groups and the columns DOB and Address for the day.

Any insights on this would be great.

v-karpurapud

Hi @DebbieE

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.

Power BI does not have an equivalent to OBIEE’s Act As / Proxy functionality. In Power BI (including Premium and Fabric), all security is always evaluated against the signed-in Entra ID identity and that identity cannot be temporarily overridden. This is a hard architectural boundary. There is no supported way for a user to impersonate another user, either to see more data or to see less data, while remaining logged in as themselves.

As a result, organizations needing OBIEE-style proxy behavior use external workarounds. The most common method is to create dedicated test or audit accounts that match a real user’s security settings, allowing admins or executives to sign in for validation or troubleshooting. Another approach is to temporarily change security group membership in a controlled and auditable manner. Currently, Power BI does not provide a built-in, user-driven “act as” feature.

Best Regards,

Microsoft Fabric Community Support Team

cengizhanarslan

Power BI security is always evaluated as the signed-in identity. You cannot temporarily “impersonate” another user and see the report as them while keeping your own login, the way OBIEE’s Proxy / Act As works. The closest option that exist in Fabric environment is “View as” option.

How to use "View as" in Power BI Desktop:

Go to Model view or Report view
Click View as (top ribbon)
Select:
1. one or more roles OR
2. “Other user”
Click OK

How to use “View as” in Power BI Service:

Open the report
Top menu → View as
Select one or more roles
Apply

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DebbieE

How to use "View as" in Power BI Desktop:

Go to Model view or Report view
Click View as (top ribbon)
Select:
1. one or more roles OR
2. “Other user”
Click OK

isnt this for a developer checking that the RLS is working? Not for users in Reports?

How to use “View as” in Power BI Service:

Open the report
Top menu → View as
Select one or more roles
Apply

Again, I dont think you can just do this is you are a user witjh specific security in place and someone wants you to view as them with for example no security in place? this again would be for a developer wouldnt it? so doesnt fit?

lbendlin

There are bits and pieces of that concept sprinkled across Fabric. One of them is the RLS "View as role/view as user" debug option, another approach is to assign yourself as workspace admin/member/contributor (thus circumventing RLS) and then applying the required filter manually. Another piece of the puzzle is bookmark sharing ("Chat in Teams") that helps with "let me show you what I mean" scenarios.

DebbieE

Another piece of the puzzle is bookmark sharing ("Chat in Teams") that helps with "let me show you what I mean" scenarios.

I would like to know about this more. i cant imagine it helping with the above? surely it wont let you access higher permissions?

the debug again isnt helpful because thats for developers. not for users.