Power BI Enterprise Level Reporting Solution

[addzulu]

Hello,

Our organization is technically exploring a new solution in Microsoft ecosystem from our current reporting environment. We've looked in to Power BI and it's simplicity of designing and building reports and dashboard, which we really liked. But, we're struggling on how to bring our current system to Power BI. We've more than 20 thousands of users accross the globe. Our users use the report/dashboard based on their folder access and row level access. We see that Power BI also has row level security but workspace solution to control folder access seems very complex per our requirements. We've 100s of folders and each folder has it's own access and user control. We don't think workspace will be a smart solution. How should we handle the folder/access in Power BI?

1. What is folder equivalent in Power BI?

2. How do we security manage the end users (>20k users) by folders?

3. If Power BI isn't the reporting tool then what other tool is available to convert our current system.

4. Monthly users access/visit ~67k

I'm attaching sample sccreen shot of our current environment. Your help, feedback, lesson learn will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

[Greg_Deckler]

@addzulu Folders in the Power BI service are in Preview but they are merely organizational, there is no security aspect to them. You're only real security container is workspace in Power BI. Maybe PBRS would get you there but that's on-premises. On potential would be to use embedded (A - SKU) and create your own front-end.

[addzulu]

@Greg_Deckler , Thanks much, this was really helpful. Well, being able to use folders (Preview) is definitely great news for our team. Regarding "use embedded (A - SKU)" can you elaborate little more on this please? Will we be able to manage users and access in folder/category structured?

Thanks, 

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

@addzulu So, in theory, yes. In this case, the application would control the security to different folders and reports. You would use app owns data: Understanding the different embedding solutions in Power BI embedded analytics | Microsoft Learn

The web application itself would present the list of folders and reports in the folders. Thus, based on the login ID of the user, you could control which folders users have access to via the app. You should also be able to support RLS with embedded: Security in Power BI embedded analytics - Power BI | Microsoft Learn