Tips on a good process, before adding Workspace to Premium Capacity

[tobiasnygren]

Hi all,

I have started to work as a Power Bi admin within a company with 800 pro users and more than 2000 workspaces.
Today we do not have a good process for when we get a ticket about adding a WS to premium, so that is what I would like to implement.
How do you do? Tips? Good questions to send to the user before adding the WS to premium.

Some Q I have been thinking about. 

- When we are adding this workspaces to the capacity, How much refresh time do we add every day?
- How many users do you think we will have on this every day, Number of Pro user and number of users without license?
- Are the datasets,dataflows, reports optimized in the workspaces?

  (Analyzed with tools like Vertipaq analyzer, BP in Tabular editor, Performance Analyzer, Dax studio)

- Do the WS name follow our naming standard

..

[tobiasnygren]

Do you have more feedback on this, thanks!
This is the questions to the developers right now.

Q1 - Is this WorkSpace business critical or Self-Service BI (SSBI)?
  - If business critical
  - Please list the datasets/dataflows/datamarts that are business critical?
  - DataSet Certified?

    **** Tip - Architect your premium capacity to
    Separating "business critical" and "Self-Service BI (SSBI)" into different capacities if possible.

Q2 - What premium feature are you intended to use?
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/enterprise/service-premium-features

Q3 - Number of users?
- Pro users?
- Users without license?

Q4 - How often will the source be updated?

Q5 - How often do you need the data to be updated?

Q6 - What is the source (DB / Dataflow / Datamart /  Files (Type of file) / web)?

Q7 - Number of refreshes per day?

Q8 - How do you refresh your data (Power BI / Powershell / Power automate), scheduled or on demand refresh?

Q9 - What is current refresh time - if more than 10 minutes, have you implemented incremental refresh?

Q10 - Is the WS following our Naming standard?
  -- [REGION]–[DATA RELATED TO COUNTRY]–[Sub Business Area]–[WS name if needed]

Q11 - Auto date/time intelligence off?

Q12 - Model, Datasets, dataflows, reports optimized in the workspaces?
  - STAR model
  # Analyzed with tools like
  - Vertipaq analyzer -
  - BP in Tabular editor  
  - Performance Analyzer -
  - Dax studio  
  - Bravo 

Q13 - How will you handle access for the workspace, WS/DS/App/Report level? RLS?

Q14 - Number of admins for this WS?

Q15 - Is it only production artifacts in this WS?
- If you need to have dev/test environment.

  Tip - Use Deployment pipelines with dev and test WorkSpace in a PPU capacity.

[v-yueyunzh-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi ,  @tobiasnygren 

Q1 - Is this WorkSpace business critical or Self-Service BI (SSBI)?

  - If business critical

  - Please list the datasets/dataflows/datamarts that are business critical?

  - DataSet Certified?

    **** Tip - Architect your premium capacity to

    Separating "business critical" and "Self-Service BI (SSBI)" into different capacities if possible.

Hello, as far as I know, this seems to be a question from a certain department or demand provider for your business situation division work area? If it is convenient, you can distinguish and classify the content in your existing workspace according to business critical/ Self-Service BI and unify them

For "DataSet Certified", as far as I know, this is a function of labeling and certifying the workspace in Power BI. For details, you can check this official document:
Endorsement - Promoting and certifying Power BI content - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Q2 - What premium feature are you intended to use?

- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/enterprise/service-premium-features

According to my experience, the most beneficial features for general Premium users are the large memory in the Premium capacity and the increase in the parallel number of data refreshes, including the maximum storage space of the data model, the improvement of data refresh efficiency and the maximum support time for data refreshes. extension (5 hours) and the maximum supported limit for these given resources also depends on the SKU size of your premium capacity
What is Microsoft Power BI Premium? - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Q3 - Number of users?

- Pro users?

- Users without license?
This question is reflected in my previous reply:

In my experience, generally in the workspace where you are assigned Premium capacity, the developer of the report needs to assign a Pro permission, and for the viewer of the report, you do not need to assign them a Pro license, which is also a unique feature of Premium Capacity, and you will follow this principle for specific distribution.

Power BI licensing for users in your organization - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Q4 - How often will the source be updated?

As far as I know, it depends on your own settings, you can set a scheduled refresh for the dataset (support up to 48 times a day) or trigger the refresh manually (you can achieve unlimited refreshes), you can check this official document:

Data refresh in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Q5 - How often do you need the data to be updated?

This also depends on your needs. For real-time data, you can consider using DQ/LC data connection mode

Q6 - What is the source (DB / Dataflow / Datamart /  Files (Type of file) / web)?

Q7 - Number of refreshes per day?

Q8 - How do you refresh your data (Power BI / Powershell / Power automate), scheduled or on demand refresh?

Q9 - What is current refresh time - if more than 10 minutes, have you implemented incremental refresh?

Q10 - Is the WS following our Naming standard?

  -- [REGION]–[DATA RELATED TO COUNTRY]–[Sub Business Area]–[WS name if needed]

Q11 - Auto date/time intelligence off?

Q12 - Model, Datasets, dataflows, reports optimized in the workspaces?

  - STAR model

  # Analyzed with tools like

  - Vertipaq analyzer -

  - BP in Tabular editor  

  - Performance Analyzer -

  - Dax studio  

  - Bravo 

Q13 - How will you handle access for the workspace, WS/DS/App/Report level? RLS?

Q14 - Number of admins for this WS?

Q15 - Is it only production artifacts in this WS?

- If you need to have dev/test environment.

  Tip - Use Deployment pipelines with dev and test WorkSpace in a PPU capacity.

The above questions of serial numbers 5 to 15 seem to be answered by the developers in your tenant according to their own situation. I think these questions are very necessary to be confirmed in advance when releasing or entering the Premium capacity, except In addition, I think another important indicator is how much memory is occupied when data is refreshed, which will have a greater impact on capacity usage and load. You can also mention it in the question.

If you don't have any other questions about this case, you can put some of your and my insights above and reply "Accept as solution", which will make it more convenient for other users with related questions to get quick help! Thanks in advance!

Best Regards,

Aniya Zhang

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

[tobiasnygren]

Regarding your comment " I think another important indicator is how much memory is occupied when data is refreshed, which will have a greater impact on capacity usage and load."

In Gen2, the allocation of the RAM happens per dataset.
Therefore, there will be significantly fewer bottlenecks in the RAM.
I think memory is not a problem in gen2, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

The bottleneck is the computing power (CPU).

[v-yueyunzh-msft]

Hi , @tobiasnygren 

In response to your questions, here are some of my views and opinions:

When we are adding this workspaces to the capacity, How much refresh time do we add every day?

I think this is determined by the type of capacity SKU you add for the workspace and the size of the data volume and the complexity of the data conversion of the dataset you want to set the refresh time for, because your capacity needs to fully carry and process the refresh of all the datasets allocated to this capacity throughout the day, and you need to ensure that your capacity load is in a state of less than 100% health at all stages of the day, otherwise there will be some or a large number of dataset refresh timeouts or insufficient capacity memory errors, You can observe it in conjunction with the usage metrics app that Power BI provides to the public to analyze capacity usage and adjust accordingly:

Monitor Power BI Premium Gen2 capacities with the Gen2 metrics app. - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

How many users do you think we will have on this every day, Number of Pro user and number of users without license?

In my experience, generally in the workspace where you are assigned Premium capacity, the developer of the report needs to assign a Pro permission, and for the viewer of the report, you do not need to assign them a Pro license, which is also a unique feature of Premium Capacity, and you will follow this principle for specific distribution.

Power BI licensing for users in your organization - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Are the datasets,dataflows, reports optimized in the workspaces?

As far as I know, in the workspace with the Premium capacity turned on, you will be allowed to turn on the function of large data sets, and the data stored in Power BI datasets and data streams are also highly compressed and stored in Azure's cloud database.

Large datasets in Power BI Premium - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

For these third-party tools you mentioned, you can check out this feature that turns on the XMLA endpoint to connect PBI datasets to third-party tools, which is also for Premium:

Dataset connectivity and management with the XMLA endpoint in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Do the WS name follow our naming standard.

As far as I know, the naming aspect of PBI workspaces is largely non-existent, except that it does not support duplicate names.

Best Regards,

Aniya Zhang

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

[tobiasnygren]

Thanks for your answer.
The question you have answered is the Q I have for our users/developers wanting a Premium Workspace.

Q1 - If we for example have 2 users that do not have pro license that view the reports and the refresh time of the datasets/dataflow is long in the WS (Comsume alot of CPU from the capacity).
Maybe it is better to have the workspace outside the capacity and buy the 2 users a pro license.

Q2 - We want our developers to start using the tools so we get better models.
For example detect that autodate time intelligence is turned off if you use BP in Tabular editor and more stuffs.

Q3 - It is a mess with not having a naming standard when we have alot of countries beeing responsible for WS. For example when you are building top 10 - toplists if a WS is called "Twitter". Which country is responsible for that.

At the moment we have this naming standard, it helps us alot.
Than it is easy to filter WS and building toplist for only North Countries.

[REGION]–[DATA RELATED TO COUNTRY]–[Sub Business Area]–[WS name if needed]
N–SWE–MONITORING–[DL/TL]
N–NOR–RETENTION
N–FIN–UPSELL
N–ALL–MARKETING
S–ESP-SALES-[PERFORMANCE]
S–ESP-FINANCE
S–ITA-FINANCE

[v-yueyunzh-msft]

Hi , @tobiasnygren 

According to your further reply, I can see that your company has a relatively high degree of professionalism and you also have your own ideas and ideas for the reasonable allocation of PBI licenses and the reasonable use of capacity, if it is convenient for you to accept me and your reply as solution, which will be very helpful to users who have this question to inquire later!

Best Regards,

Aniya Zhang

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

[arvindsingh802]

In addition to your please add below

1. What premium feature you are intended to use

2. Is this workspace only have production copy ( this will depend if you wanted to have prod version under premium)

3. What is current refresh time - if more than 5 minutes, have you implemented incremental refresh

Tip - You should also architect your premium capacity to Separating business critical and Self-Service BI (SSBI) into different capacities if possible.