Managing a Power BI Environment

Introduction

Overview of Power BI usage scenarios, collaboration methods, enterprise capabilities, and the importance of managing Power BI Service, including pricing.

• Power BI Usage Scenarios
• Power BI Service pricing
• The Power BI Architecture
• LAB: Diving into the Power BI Architecture

Configuring Workspaces

Workspaces are places where users collaborate to create semantic models, reports, dashboards, data flows, ... In this module students will learn about securing and managing workspaces in an enterprise Power BI environment. Topics like how to automate the creation of workspaces and assigning capacity will be covered in this chapter.

• Creating Workspaces
• Set a Workspace OneDrive
• Workspace Connectivity with the XMLA Endpoint
• Managing Workspaces with PowerShell
• LAB: Configuring Workspaces

Creating and Managing Semantic Models

Semantic Models (previously called Datasets) are at the cornerstone of Power BI reporting. This module covers the versioning of semantic models using free and open-source tools.

• Working with Semantic Models in the Power BI Service
• Power BI Projects and Source Control
• Git Integration in the Power BI Service
• Adjusting and Deploying Semantic Models with Tabular Editor
• Versioning and Deploying using ALM Toolkit
• Aggregations in Semantic Models
• Semantic Model Deployment using PowerShell
• LAB: Deploying and Versioning Semantic Models

Configuring Workspace Security

This module discusses the different workspace security roles and the consequences of these roles when sharing dashboards and reports with other users.

• Configuring Workspace Security
• Security when Sharing Dashboards and Reports
• Securing Data at Rest
• Securing Data in Transit
• LAB: Securing Workspaces

Refreshing Semantic Models

This chapter talks about the importance of scheduling data refreshes in Power BI to keep reports up-to-date. It covers incremental refresh and data partitioning to efficiently manage large datasets, and explains how data gateways enable secure refreshes for on-premise data sources.

• Refreshing Online vs On-Prem data sources
• Configuring Data Refresh Credentials
• Configuring and Monitoring Data Gateways
• Scheduling Refreshes
• Configuring Incremental Refresh
• Incremental Refreshes and Partitioning
• LAB: Configuring Data Refreshes

Deploying Content using Deployment Pipelines

When Power BI reports and dashboards become essential company resources, you don't want to deploy new or updated workspace content directly in production. This module describes how use deployment pipeline to deploy workspace content between development, acceptance and production workspaces.

• The Need for different Workspaces
• Using Deployment Pipelines
• Getting the Most out of Deployment Pipelines
• LAB: Working with Deployment Pipelines

Working with Dataflows

Dataflows bring Power Query to the cloud, allowing the reuse of data preparation logic in multiple semantic models or in other Azure technologies. In this module, we will discuss the concept and usage of dataflows and the Common Data Model. You will not only learn how dataflows are created and leveraged in Power BI, but also how they can be used in other Microsoft Azure technologies like Azure Synapse and Databricks using Spark and the Common Data Model connector.

• What are Dataflows?
• Dataflows, Entities and the Common Data Model (CDM)
• Dataflows and Azure Data Lake Gen 2 Storage
• Creating Dataflows
• Working with Linked and Computed Tables
• Scheduling Refreshes for Dataflows
• Using Dataflows in Power BI Desktop
• Dataflow Licensing
• LAB: Working with Dataflows

Monitoring Power BI

Monitoring the Power BI environment is crucial to spot performance issues, to estimate capacity. Auditing is also important from a security point of view.

• Monitor Power BI via Reports
• Monitoring Workspace Usage
• Customizing Workspace Usage Reporting
• Power BI Premium Capacity Metrics and Alerts
• Power BI Activity Log for advanced logging
• Unified Microsoft 365 Audit Logging
• LAB: Monitoring Power BI

Administering a Power BI Tenant

To enforce company policies, tenant settings need to be properly configured. Which custom visuals can be used? Can reports and report data be shared with external users, ... In this module you will get an overview of the different Power BI tenant settings you can configure.

• Configuring Tenant Settings
• Sharing Settings
• Custom Visuals Settings