Power BI usage scenarios: Team BI
Note
This article forms part of the Power BI implementation planning series of articles. This series focuses primarily on the Power BI experience within Microsoft Fabric. For an introduction to the series, see Power BI implementation planning.
Once a valuable BI solution is created, it's time to collaborate with colleagues. The goal is to deliver additional value beyond what can be achieved with the personal BI scenario.
As described in the Fabric adoption roadmap, team BI focuses on a small team of people who work closely together. Collaborating and sharing content with each other in an informal way is usually a key objective of team BI (more formal delivery of content is covered in the departmental BI and enterprise BI scenarios).
Sometimes when working with close colleagues, collaboration for small teams can be done simply within a workspace. A workspace can be thought of as a way to informally view content (without the formality of publishing a Power BI app, which is covered in the departmental BI scenario) by members of a small team.
Note
There are four content collaboration and delivery usage scenarios that build upon each other. The team BI scenario is the second of the four scenarios. A list of all scenarios can be found in the Power BI usage scenarios article.
The managed self-service BI scenario introduces an important concept about decoupling semantic model and report development. For simplicity, this concept isn't explicitly discussed in this article. You're encouraged to apply the concepts discussed in the managed self-service BI scenario whenever possible.
Scenario diagram
The following diagram depicts a high-level overview of the most common user actions and Power BI components that support team BI. The primary focus is small team collaboration.
Tip
We encourage you to download the scenario diagram if you'd like to embed it in your presentation, documentation, or blog post—or print it out as a wall poster. Because it's a Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) image, you can scale it up or down without any loss of quality.
The scenario diagram depicts the following user actions, tools, and features:
| Item | Description |
|---|---|
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Power BI content creators develop BI solutions using Power BI Desktop. In a team BI scenario, it's common for creators to work within a decentralized team, department, or business unit. |
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Power BI Desktop connects to data from one or more data sources. Queries and data mashups, which combine multiple sources, are developed in the Power Query Editor. |
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Data model development and report creation are done in Power BI Desktop. In a team BI solution, the purpose is to help team members understand the meaning and significance of data by placing it in a visual context. |
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When ready, content creators publish their Power BI Desktop file (.pbix) or Power BI project file (.pbip) to the Power BI service. |
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The content is published to a workspace. Its primary purpose is to provide information and enable collaboration for a small team. Content creators can also create or edit some content in a workspace. |
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All users assigned to a workspace role (viewer or higher) view and interact with content in the workspace. One option is to sign in to the Power BI service using a web browser. |
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The Power BI mobile apps are also available for viewing published content. |
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Users who frequently work in Microsoft Teams might find it convenient to manage or view Power BI content directly in Teams. They can use the Power BI app for Microsoft Teams or view reports that are embedded within a team channel. Users can also have private chats with each other and receive notifications directly in Teams. |
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Users assigned to the administrator, member, or contributor workspace role can publish and manage workspace content. |
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Scheduled data refresh can be set up in the Power BI service to keep imported data—in semantic models or dataflows—up to date. |
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Some data sources may require an On-premises data gateway or VNet gateway for data refresh, like those that reside within a private organizational network. |
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Other self-service content creators can author new reports using an existing semantic model. They can choose to use Power BI Desktop, Excel, or Power BI Report Builder (not depicted in the scenario diagram). The reuse of existing semantic models in this manner is highly encouraged. |
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Power BI administrators oversee and monitor activity in the Power BI service. Team BI solutions could be subject to more governance requirements than personal BI, but fewer than departmental BI and enterprise BI solutions. |
Key points
The following are some key points to emphasize about the team BI scenario.
Source file storage
Power BI Desktop is the authoring tool to develop queries, models, and interactive reports. Because collaboration is a high priority for team BI, it's important to store the source Power BI Desktop file in a secure, shared location. Locations such as OneDrive for work or school or SharePoint (not depicted in the scenario diagram) are useful due to built-in version history and automatic file synchronization. A shared library is securable, easily accessible by colleagues, and has built-in versioning capabilities.
When the co-management of a BI solution involves multiple people with different skillsets, consider decoupling the model and reports into separate Power BI Desktop files (described in the managed self-service BI scenario). This approach encourages reuse of the semantic model and is more efficient than continually alternating between the people who are editing the Power BI Desktop file. That's particularly helpful when, for instance, one person works on the semantic model while another person works on the reports.
Workspaces
A Power BI workspace serves as a logical container in the Power BI service for storing related Power BI items, such as semantic models and reports. In a team BI scenario, it's practical and simple to use the workspace for collaboration as well as for the viewing of reports by a small number of users. The distribution of content as a Power BI app is described in the departmental BI scenario.
Workspace access and sharing
In addition to organizing content, a workspace forms a security boundary. Assign users to workspace roles when a team member needs to edit or view all items published to a workspace. The four workspace roles (administrator, member, contributor, and viewer) support productivity for self-service content creators and consumers, without over-provisioning permissions.
Note
Alternatively, workspace users can share individual reports and dashboards (not depicted in the scenario diagram). Sharing can grant read-only access to someone who isn't assigned to a workspace role. However, try to limit sharing because it can be tedious to setup for many items or many users.
Power BI user licenses
When collaborating in a workspace, all users must have a Power BI Pro or Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) license.
Note
There's one exception to the requirement of a Power BI Pro or PPU license: When the workspace is assigned to Premium capacity or Fabric F64 or greater capacity, Fabric free license users (with proper permissions) can view the workspace (and/or Power BI app) content. This approach is described in the enterprise BI scenario.
Reuse existing semantic models
The reuse of existing semantic models is important for team collaboration. It helps to promote a single version of the truth. It's particularly important when a small number of semantic model creators support many report creators. A Power BI Desktop live connection can connect a report to an existing semantic model, avoiding the need to create another semantic model. Alternatively, when users prefer to create an Excel report, they can use the Analyze in Excel feature. This type of connectivity is preferred to exporting data to Excel because it:
- Avoids creating duplicate semantic models.
- Reduces the risk of inconsistent data and calculations.
- Supports all slicing, dicing, and pivoting capabilities within the visuals while remaining connected to the semantic model that's stored in the Power BI service.
To access an existing semantic model, the content creator must have Build permission for the semantic model. It can be granted directly or indirectly when the user is assigned to a workspace role (contributor or higher) or granted when publishing a Power BI app or sharing a Power BI item. The managed self-service BI scenario explores the reuse of shared semantic models further.
Power BI integration with Microsoft Teams
Using a modern collaboration tool like Microsoft Teams engages users to make data-driven decisions. Microsoft Teams supports collaborative discussions about data while viewing Power BI content within a natural workflow. To learn about more collaboration options, see Collaborate in Microsoft Teams with Power BI.
Gateway setup
Typically, a data gateway is required when accessing data sources that reside within the private organizational network or a virtual network. The On-premises data gateway becomes relevant once a Power BI Desktop file is published to the Power BI service. The two purposes of a gateway are to refresh imported data, or view a report that queries a live connection or DirectQuery semantic model (not depicted in the scenario diagram).
Note
For team, departmental, and enterprise BI scenarios, a centralized data gateway in standard mode is strongly recommended over gateways in personal mode. In standard mode, the data gateway supports live connection and DirectQuery operations (in addition to scheduled data refresh operations).
System oversight
The activity log records user activities that occur in the Power BI service. Power BI administrators can use the activity log data that's collected to perform auditing to help them understand usage patterns and adoption. The activity log is also valuable for supporting governance efforts, security audits, and compliance requirements.
Related content
In the next article in this series, learn about distributing content to a larger number of viewers in the departmental BI usage scenario.