Power BI Pro: Data security and licensing

[Anonymous]

Background: In my organization, we have an in-house application to generate reports. currently we generate using xls and share the same with our customers for their further analysis (they share the raw data, which we process and generate report). Now for our own internal processing and cleansing data we have started using P-BI and are able to generate customer specific reports which are shared via email manually to each one.

In view of using P-BI, however have some queries on various topics and any insights will be highly appreciated.

1. Security aspect / Data in MS cloud: from my understanding P BI makes a local copy of the data for its own internal use (in our case an xls and sql) and uses the same for all the reports and dashboards which are generated in P BI. When the initial data source changes, we just need to refresh. So the question is “is this local copy stored in Azure and or in some cloud”. How can we be sure of our data security esp. wrt to GDPR etc.? And not its mis-use? Am sure MS P BI having would have already looked into this but is there any documentation around this which I can show to my management / customers?
2. Licensing:
   1. If I create reports / dashboards in Power BI with my org email id, can I share the same with my customers?  Can they see the dashboard directly? Or do they need to sign in with their respective org email id?
      1.     Do they need to buy or have pro lic to see the dashboards?
   2. How can I enable just read only or view only access to my report maybe download but definitely not modifying the report. They can request us for the new changes if any and we will update and share / publish the new report / dashboard?
   3. Can I also have multiple dashboards for 1 customer for various depts. Such as procurement, CxO, Managers and users? Will this mean more additional licences?

Regards,

Gaurav.

[collinq · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

For #1:  Service Trust Portal (microsoft.com)   That is the GDPR whitepaper.  And, this link is the Security WHitepaper:  Power BI security white paper - Power BI | Microsoft Learn And, in January of this year they created the EU data boundary: Microsoft EU Data Boundary

I just put in my answers next to your questions here:

1. Licensing:
   1. If I create reports / dashboards in Power BI with my org email id, can I share the same with my customers? If you are allowed to externally share, in the admin portal, your AD settings and your userid, then yes, you can share a report externally. Can they see the dashboard directly? You can share the app, the dashboard, or the report  Or do they need to sign in with their respective org email id?  This is about how you share - you can provide a license or they can bring their own license.  For somebody to see the report, they have to have a license.  The userid that you share with has to have a license - whether that is THEIR license or a userid in your site using YOUR license.
      1.     Do they need to buy or have pro lic to see the dashboards?  You have to have a license to see a report - yours or theirs.  So, a license has to be purchased - the exception here is if you have Premium where you can assign them a license out of that pool.
   2. How can I enable just read only or view only access to my report maybe download but definitely not modifying the report. I would just share the app.  And DO NOT give them dataset/build/share capability.  This is the best way for them to have minimal capability.  I would be careful what you mean by "download".  If you mean download the pbix file, then you are not having any security.  If you mean "export data to excel" that is up to you if you want them to have the data that you are showing them on their own machines.  They can request us for the new changes if any and we will update and share / publish the new report / dashboard?  That is more a business provess than a PBI issues - if you are sharing apps and you are not giving them edit access, then they can send you an email for whatever change they want and you can modify the report, re-publish it to your workspace and then update the app as needed.
   3. Can I also have multiple dashboards for 1 customer for various depts. Such as procurement, CxO, Managers and users? Yes, use RLS (Row level security) and/or audiences and/or multiple apps to limit who sees what.  Will this mean more additional licences?  Licensing is based on users - so how you are presenting is not as important as who is viewing.  1 user = 1 license.  So, a user that can see 5 different dashboards still needs only 1 license.

Let me know if that helped!

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much Collinq for the lightening response and detailed clarifications! Cant thank you enough. I will go through the links shared and also explore the sharing via app and RLS. I would need to work with my admin for some configurations i guess esp, the maps being disabled and the sharing permissions / privileges.

Also, yes, by download i meant just a simple xls download.

I would definitely reach out on this forum for any additional information and also DM'ing you!

Once again, Thanks a ton!

Should have come to this forum earlier.

Regards,

Gaurav.