What is Governance policy in the organization? Why do we need it in PowerBI? How is it connected to groups and other O365 components? Presented in Redmond SQL Saturday 2018

1. Yana Berkovich Data Platform MVP
@yana_Berkovich
YanaBerkovich.com
Redmond SQL Saturday
Governance for PowerBI

2. About Me
BI Analyst,DataPlatformMVP
Consultant, ProductManager
Member of BI, BA, SharePoint,O365, PM communities
Data PlatformConsultant
ExperimentingwithO365
Worked as SharePointeverything,lovesharingmy insights.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yanaberkovich
http://yanaberkovich.com
@Yana_Berkovich

3. Agenda
• What is Governance?
• Information Access Policy Groups/Workspaces
• Sharing vs Publishing
• Licensing Policy – Who is important enough??
• Visual Governance
• Reporting the reports
• Enforcing?
• Best Practices and Lessons (already) Learned…

4. What is Governance? (In the IT context)
A formal framework that provides a structure for organizations to ensure
that IT investments support business objectives.
• ITIL – Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a Governance
Framework
• GRC – Governance Risk & Compliance is another Framework established
in 2000 in US for large corporations
• ISO 27001 – is the IT related framework

5. What is PowerBI? (in case planet Earth is not home…)
• A tool which is part of O365 to create and
share data visualizations
Allows Editors to:
• Collaborate and create contact in
workspaces
• Share content with end users using
PowerBI Apps
• Embed dashboards and reports in other
applications
• Measure impact
• Enable Self Service BI

6. It is Self Service BI so why
bother?
• Don’t let it be the new white elephant
• Fast corporate reporting
• Measure the usability and the impact of
your reporting
• Information security
• Corporate Culture
• Regulations
• Reporting to Stakeholders

7. The Essential Slide to understand where the
data goes and where it comes from
Apps
Reports
O365
Premium with
dedicated
storage

8. Where is Governance involved?
Who can Edit?
How and who access Data Source?
Templates and custom visuals to use
On
Prem
DB
Direct Query?
Cash/import data?
Who can consume?
Similar across devices?
Special authentication?
Design
Data Integrity
Scheduled
connections
Ignite 2017 -

9. Access and Security

10. Let’s start with the most celebrated topic…
(Credits: @geek_king)

11. Security
• Dave against the information security – the human error
• When sharing publicly that means- I can tweet it and everybody in
the world can see it! It is just a link
• Sending the reports as a .pbix file, just like an Excel file – no
encryption, no permissions, anyone can download desktop version
and access
• Well print screens… there is nothing much for now
• Watch the groups! Who is in your group? Does she still work here?
• Create alerts for access/changes in groups
• Create group review schedule

12. Data Security – Who can Access my data??
(PowerBI.com)
• Access Management can be done through groups to the groups
Workspace
• Access management through groups can be done directly in O365 –
People or through PowerShell
• External Business Users with O365 – Was added in Nov release! 
• Anonymous login – no more Windows Live ID  (old but sad news)
Premium gives
view access to
entire org
Pro – only other
Pro users can
view

13. How to add people to your Group?
• Use Groups to manage peoples
access to your PowerBI
Workspaces
• Assign tasks to people in your
group
• Governance made easier, similar
to Outlook distribution lists
• Permissions types:
• Owners
• Guests Governance – You have a
group I have a group
Everybody can have a
group!!!!!
Lets create a group and
add people

14. Directory Management – Groups
• Policy in azure ad allows admin to restrict group creation only on outlook and all
group applications
• Multi domain support
• Working on policy for group expiry
• Hidden membership
• Separate groups by corporate policy type – will follow other organizational content
• Usage guidelines
• Multi domain and creating groups in specific domain
• Usage reporting
• Hybrid – support for groups solution for Hybrid scenario
• Remember Dave! Check who is in your group and set policies

15. The power of …security…

16. Access control
• Granular access control on who can view
the data
• RLS- data is presented based on
permissions user has
The general rule still applies:
• Premium gives view access to entire org
• Pro – only other Pro users can view
so no we cannot assign roles to people
outside the group and expect them to see
Ignite 2017 -

17. Roles – view only the relevant information
• Roles are assigned in the PowerBI top menu, designed to customize
which information can be viewed based on DAX query filters

18. Roles the hard way –
PowerShell helps bringing governance to life
• Connect to Azure AD – the place where the access is managed
• List of roles in tenant
• Command:
• Add the user to the role:
• See what Dave is up to in his roles

19. License Policy

20. Who is Important Enough??
• Pro or Premium?
• In Pro & Premium: who gets the pro? Editor
in each org? in each group? IT controlled
only?
• Cost efficiency analysis when users number
reaches x…
• What is the process to request a user?
Should the admin decide?
• Each group gets a pro user in Premium? Just
specific people after a course?

21. Publish Vs Share

22. Publishing vs Sharing
• Using PowerBI App –
Allows permissions, push to
group, selective publishing
of content, “production”
environment
• Publish content pack (next
slide)
• Publish to Web – an
addiction of many
• Using Share Report by email
option, allows sending a report to
users with the cashed data. If user
has connection through Data
Gateway and direct query the data
will refresh adding more access
requests
• Share dashboards and reports in
other apps – “embedding” in
SharePoint

23. Publishing and Sharing
• How are apps different from content packs?
• Apps are an evolution and simplification of content packs
• Which helps enabling governance policy?
APPS Content Packs Governance
Maintain Grouping and Identity loses its grouped identity: it's just a list
of dashboards and reports
Apps – Identity and data access
1:1 Workspace to App (to
group…)
Multiple content packs from
workspace
CP – Different content vs. continue
based on group
Allows selective publishing Allows selective publishing Both
Push notification when created to
users, link the app
Send the content pack, link report or
dashboard
Apps – linkable, single source of truth
The way to publish your content Will be deprecated Why didn’t I just start here???

24. Software Development Lifecycle in PowerBI
Dataset
Reports
Dashboards PowerBI App
Workspace - Dev Workspace Test
Dataset
Reports
Dashboards
Prod – Entire
organization
Group
Workspace Prod
Dataset
Reports
Dashboards
Site
SharePoint/ Web
PowerApp
Selective Publishing
Can Directly connect through API

25. Embeded
• Embed the Analytics in the PowerBI app
Use the Azure to add the analytics to your app and analyze its usage
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/power-bi-embedded/
• Decision making regarding the app usability, control and publishing
We will return to this in the reports
about report section so…stay tuned!

26. Visual Rules

27. Visual Governance
Branding – Why you should come to the Vancouver PowerBI user group
Scott Stauffer presented in Nov
• Templates - Reports colors, Color scheme, fonts, frame sizes…
• Corporate Layouts -
• Visual Templates – Entire workspace
• Max visuals per page
• Mobile page definitions
• NEW – Organizational Custom Visuals
Gallery (Feb release) (Amanda Cofsky)

28. Organizational Themes
(Release link Sep)
• Theme
• Colors
• Fonts
• Text Size
• Data Labels control (not for the custom
visuals)
• Report Theme Generator for the UI
Designers LINK
• Theme creation for the color match
challenged LINK (Thank you Chuck!!!)

29. What are the custom visuals and where can
we find them?
How do we use them?
• Can be added as a file
• Can be added from the store
• Can be created
My Company store – Amanda Cofsky
(February release )

30. What can go wrong and how governance
helps?
• Filters -Not always filtering correctly –
specify which visuals are approved to use in your organization consider customizing according
to themes
• Usually Themes are not effective –
Decide if it is important and follow through/ customize with R
• Code might not be updated
Visuals review after every release or some of them by your PowerBI admin
• Maps support different coordinates
Data integrity for coordinates (I have manually changed in 134 buildings…)
• Mobile display
SDL in every PowerBI implementation
• R Scrip installation
• Dashboard crashing…too many visuals ahhh
Guidance specific to your organization on Dashboard and Reports UI

31. Monitor and Report the Reports

32. Which Enforcing tools
have we got?
• Templates and Visual Guides – can be overridden
• Publishing methods are restricted (Premium vs Pro)
• Monitor the views and reports – log view/Embeded
• Create alerts and policies for suspicious activity –
Using other tools – Embedded
• Applications across devices – Where the
application can be viewed – more control

33. Enabling the
Governance
• Export and Sharing
• Can people publish to the
web?
• Can data be exported?
• PowerPoint is still in Preview,
should we use that and risk
complains?
• Print settings (Dave still got
print screen )

34. Content Pack
and App
Settings

35. Who published what when
and is it still active?
• The full list of all your
embed reports
• Who published them and
where can they be found
• Usage and other metrics
in premium or the
PowerBI Embeded on
Azure

36. Mobile App – Microsoft InTune Software
publisher
• Configuring publishing and other
app policies for PowerBI mobile
applications on iphone
• Adding Conditional Access
Features
• PowerBI Application in your
organization
• Corporate device enrollment
• Adding the App URL into the
Intune software

37. Android InTune
• Adding to the corporate App
Store
• MDM management in O365 can
coexist with InTune

38. Reporting the Reports Audit Logs – O365
Admin
• Audit Logs –
• Gives the log list starting mid November for usability
• Can be exported and report can be created

39. Audit Logs through Embedded and Azure
• provides reporting on the entire PowerBI usage in the organization
• No of users
• Users Accesses
• Access by date
• Data Refresh – scheduled and performed
• Gateway Lifecycle – active and used
• Pro Trial status (preview feature)
• Usability reports for each App
• Usability reports for dashboards
• User Access reports

40. Access Reports about the Reports
• O365 Admin portal PowerBI Preview -
https://portal.office.com/adminportal/home#/reportsUsage
• AdminPortal in your PowerBI console online
https://app.powerbi.com/admin-portal
• Embeded via Azure
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/power-bi-embedded/
PowerBI Premium – control over performance and scale –
Organization wide control for access and queries
Enables Performance review – which reports and apps are the most used?

41. To sum it all up
• Policies
• Rules and regulations
• Frequent reports
• Check where does Dave belong and create processes around adding
and terminating employees and partners

42. Not the best Practices
Organizational Practice Result
To save on licensing cost, the reports are
simply shared via SharePoint and emails
using the Share to Web
The cashed data is completely exposed
The data synchronization is done to multiple sources
resulting data caps reached
Cashing and importing all the data
instead of using direct query
The data quate of 10G per group is running out, the data
sets cannot be updated anymore
Data Integrity in case of no Sync or communication lost for
live DB
Not creating the mobile view Frustrated mobile users – adoption is affected
Too much mobile data used
Presentation is not fir for screen
Creating a group for each report Shared data cannot be viewed, report versions are
becoming common, leads to lack of single source of truth in
visualization

43. Lessons Learned
• Design your governance policy ahead of starting – Frame work
• Data Security
• Data Integrity
• Access
• Visual
• Monitoring
• Licensing decisions
• Design your KPI’s around PowerBI
• Build the process than look to automate it

44. Data Sources:
• PowerBI.com – community, blog, site
• Guy in the Cube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQRbdJgEm3k
• ignite 2017 Governance in PowerBI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6yZigZ2Jt8
• Brett Powell MVP Frontline Analytics
https://insightsquest.com/2017/09/30/power-bi-enterprise-deploy-and-
govern-presentation-from-ignite-2017/
• Mastering Microsoft PowerBI https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-
Microsoft-Power-Brett-
Powell/dp/1788297237/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1510881535&
sr=1-1&keywords=mastering+power+bi
• PowerBI Data Governance White paper- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/power-bi/service-admin-governance

45. https://www.linkedin.com/in/yanaberkovich
http://yanaberkovich.com
@Yana_Berkovich
Questions?