use cases and governance practices for sharing dashboards, reports, and data sources in Power BI for a finance department with personas like Data Analysts and Senior Management.
Personas
- Data Analysts – build and maintain datasets, create and refine dashboards, perform data validation.
- Senior Management – consume curated dashboards, monitor KPIs, request enhancements, and make strategic decisions.
- Finance Business Units – such as Budget & Forecasting (BF), Treasury (TR), Corporate Income Tax (CIT), Global Business Services (GBS), and Financial Business Intelligence (FBI).
Use Cases for Sharing Dashboards, Reports, and Data Sources
Workspace-Based Sharing
Data Analysts may collaborate in dedicated development workspaces where multiple analysts contribute to reports and datasets. These spaces are editable and often restricted to members of the BI team. Once reports are finalized, they can be placed into production workspaces where business users, including senior managers, are given viewer access. Each finance business area can have its own workspace so their content is logically separated and permissions can be tailored to the specific audience.
App-Based Distribution
The finance department can maintain a single curated “Finance Department App” that bundles key reports from various workspaces. Senior management may also have a dedicated “Executive KPI App” with high-level metrics like profit and loss, cash flow, and variance analysis. Additionally, each business area can have its own functional app, such as a Budget & Forecasting App for BF or a Liquidity Monitoring App for Treasury. Apps provide a stable, controlled environment where users always see the approved version of content.
Direct Link Sharing
When analysts need peer review, they can share a direct report link with colleagues in a controlled environment, usually in a non-production workspace. Senior managers can also share links to existing reports when discussing performance in meetings. Governance here focuses on ensuring that sharing is done within the Power BI environment rather than through uncontrolled exports.
Dataset and Data Source Sharing
Analysts may consume shared, certified datasets that serve as the single source of truth for finance metrics, such as general ledger transactions or cost center summaries. These datasets are centrally maintained and certified to prevent duplication or conflicting logic. Senior management and finance staff can also connect Excel directly to these certified datasets for familiar pivot table analysis without compromising the security or structure of the source data.
External and Cross-Department Sharing
Sometimes finance dashboards need to be shared with external parties such as auditors. This should be done through guest accounts with multi-factor authentication, with access removed when the engagement ends. Cross-departmental sharing is also common, for example, when finance and HR need to analyze headcount costs against budgets. In these cases, Row-Level Security ensures that each department only sees the data relevant to them.
Governance Practices to Manage These Use Cases
Permission Management
Assign permissions through Azure AD security groups rather than directly to individuals. Follow the principle of least privilege — giving viewers only the ability to consume reports, contributors the ability to edit, and members the ability to administer a workspace.
Data Security
Apply Row-Level Security for sensitive information such as payroll or executive compensation. Where necessary, disable the ability to export underlying data. Keep dataset ownership centralized within the BI governance team to avoid shadow models.
Content Certification
Maintain a clear process for dataset promotion and certification. Only certified datasets should be used for building apps or reports in production. Keep a data catalog describing each dataset’s purpose, owner, and refresh schedule.
Version Control
Use separate development, test, and production workspaces connected by deployment pipelines. Document all changes and maintain a change log for transparency.
Monitoring and Audit
Enable Power BI audit logs in Microsoft 365 to track sharing, access, and changes. Conduct regular permission reviews and monitor dataset refresh success rates and usage patterns.
Naming and Structuring
Adopt consistent naming conventions such as FIN-BF-BudgetCycle for workspaces, BF-BudgetOverview for reports, and semantic dataset names matching their business purpose. This supports clarity and governance.
Training and Adoption
Educate analysts on how to work with certified datasets and publish content in the correct workspaces. Provide senior management with guidance on interacting with dashboards, filtering views, and using mobile access effectively.
From Blogger iPhone client