RLS Not Working with "Intermediary" Model

[delish68]

Apologies if this is confusing...

I have a "core" semantic model called "Financial Model". It has RLS implemented within it. It works fine when tested within Power BI Desktop and also works with a very basic "RLS Test" report on the Power BI service. However, I have another report called "Expense Report" that is also built on top of the "Financial Model" model and RLS does not work within it.

My theory is that because "Expense Report" has some custom measures, when published, a new "intermediary" model called "Expense Report" is published alongside it and RLS is not being passed from the "Financial Model" model, up through to the "Expense Report" model, and ultimately to the "Expense Report" report. Hopefully the image below helps. 

Can this be fixed? In other words, can I have a report with custom measures, built on a model with RLS, and still have RLS passed through to my report?

[delish68 · Accepted solution]

I got to the bottom of this. At some point, one of the developers enabled DirectQuery, which creates this "intermediary" semantic model. I don't think there's a way to remove that so we are copying and pasting everything from the original report to the new report.

[aj1973]

Hi @delish68 

The RLS is only applied to its semantic model, it cannt be carried on to the semantic model that is built on top of it.

[delish68]

There isn't a semantic model explicitly/intentionally being created on top of it. I'm only guessing that it's being created because the report has some custom columns or measures in it. The intention is for the report to sit directly on top of the semantic model with RLS. Is there a way to resolve this?

[aj1973]

You can build a new report with live connection to your dataset

[delish68]

That's exactly what we did. However, when we publish the report, we end up with an additional semantic model with the same name as the report (which points to the live Power BI dataset).

[aj1973]

Sorry, you need to create it in the service

[delish68]

It's a complex report that's already been created. Having to create it in the service seems like an odd requirement. I think the important question is, why is this additional semantic model (Expense Report model) being created when my report is built on the "Financial Model" model?

[aj1973]

Because you have created it when using Get Data in power bi desktop.

The main purpose for that action is when a developper creates a big Dataset or, Dataflows or Datamart to be reused by other users without editing the master one for security reasons.

[delish68]

I have created other reports in Power BI desktop, based on the Financial Model (using Get Data), and it does not have the same behavior of creating an additional model when publishing.

[aj1973]

Not same behavior ! and after publishing you don't get a new Semantic model in the service !

Sorry but It seems weird.