My Workspace
Each licensed Power BI user has a private area called My Workspace. My Workspace should be used very minimally because:
- Content is owned and may be edited by only one person
- Content cannot be edited if the owner is on vacation, out sick, or leaves the institution
- The only way to allow others to see content in My Workspace is via sharing, which is not recommended by the UMS
- Apps cannot be generated from content in My Workspace
Generally, all critical content should be placed within a (departmental) Workspace instead of My Workspace
The initial setup for your department's workspace is done by IT administrators. Workspace can be thought of as:
- A way to logically group or organize departmental content
- A space to collaborate with members of your department on projects before final publication
- A security boundary
The primary purpose of a Workspace is team collaboration between multiple people who create reports and semantic models, review Workspace content, and test its validity. You can request a departmental Workspace using the Power BI Workspace Request Form.
Workspace Permissions & Roles
Workspace permissions are managed by workspace owners. Limit Workspace access to people who are handling authoring, development, or testing activities only. The following is a summary of permissions for each workspace role:
|
Permissions
|
Admin
|
Member
|
Contributor
|
Viewer
|
|
Edit/delete workspace
|
√
|
|
|
|
|
Add admins
|
√
|
|
|
|
|
Add members
|
√
|
√
|
|
|
|
Share
|
√
|
√
|
|
|
|
Publish/update apps
|
√
|
√
|
|
|
|
Add/edit/delete content
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
|
|
View content
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
√
|
Please go to Roles in workspaces in Power BI on the Microsoft site for more information.
Power BI App
Apps are focused on content distribution to a larger population of users.
- An app represents a subset of related reports and dashboards from a Workspace
- Viewers of an app are always read-only
- Individual objects may be excluded from the app when appropriate, but otherwise, the app is aligned with the workspace (i.e., there is only one app per workspace)
Permissions for an App
Permissions are set separately for an App than for the workspace. Since Apps have a separate permissions model, this allows for all consumers to obtain content via the App. This reserves workspace permissions for only those colleagues who will create, edit, or test content before it is published in an App. Using groups to assign permissions is highly encouraged. Managing permissions through groups reduces administrative overhead. You can add more users than adding the user individually (max =100).
All App users must have "Read" permission on the underlying semantic model and be added to a Row-Level Security role. Otherwise, they will not be able to see data or even open the App. Please go to Publishing an Application - App in Power BI page for more information.
Sharing Content
You can also share a report individually using the "Share" function. When content is shared, it is always a read-only experience for the recipient of the share. Sharing is specified for each dashboard and report.
Since sharing is done on an individual object basis, it should be used as the exception rather than the rule. Sharing from My Workspace should be used very sparingly. Sharing from Workspace is acceptable when:
- You need to allow read-only access to one piece of content (rather than everything in the workspace or everything published to an App)
- You do not want the recipient to see other content
Sharing should be used for informal scenarios where content is shared with just a few people who work closely together, otherwise, an App is a recommended tool to share reports.
Environment