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Control access to datamarts

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This article describes access control to datamarts, including row level security, rules in Power BI Desktop, and how datamarts might become inaccessible or unavailable.

How datamarts become unavailable

A datamart can get marked as an unavailable datamart when one of the following situations occurs.

Situation 1: When a Premium workspace is changed from Premium to non-premium, all datamarts in that workspace become unavailable. The Datamart editor becomes unavailable and downstream usage of the datamart and auto-generated datasets is blocked. Users or administrators must upgrade the workspace to its original Premium capacity to restore datamarts.

Situation 2: When dataflow updates a datamart and associated dataset, but due to a system lock the datamart or dataset update is pending, the datamart becomes unavailable. The Datamart editor isn't accessible when a datamart goes into unavailable state. The try again action, shown in the following image, enables users to trigger synchronization between dataflow, datamart and dataset. It may take a few minutes to complete the requested action but downstream consumption can be continued.

Screenshot of the request access setting.

Row level security

Row-level security (RLS) can be used to restrict data access for specified users to a datamart. Filters restrict data access at the row level, and you can define filters within roles. In the Power BI service, members of a workspace have access to datamarts in the workspace, and RLS doesn't restrict such data access.

You can configure RLS for datamarts in the Datamart editor. The configured RLS on datamarts automatically gets applied to downstream items, including the auto-generated datasets and reports.

Define Row Level Security (RLS) roles and rules for Datamarts

To define RLS roles, take the following steps:

  1. Open your datamart and select Manage Roles from the ribbon. Screenshot of the manage roles ribbon button.

  2. Create new RLS roles using the Row security settings window. You can define a combination of filters on tables and select Save to save the role. Screenshot of the row security settings window.

  3. Once the role is saved, select Assign to add users to the role. Once assigned, select Save to save the role assignments and close the RLS settings modal. Screenshot of the row security settings selections.

To validate the roles created, take the following steps:

  1. Select the View as button from the ribbon. Screenshot of the view as ribbon button.

  2. Select the role to be validated by selecting the check box for the role, then select OK. Screenshot of the manage view as role window.

  3. The data view shows the access that the selected role has. Screenshot of the view as results.

To revert to your access, select the View as button on the ribbon again, and select None.

Screenshot of the view as role window with none selected.

Next steps

This article provided information about controlling access to datamarts.

The following articles provide more information about datamarts and Power BI:

For more information about dataflows and transforming data, see the following articles: