Power BI project roles

Following the review of the project template and input from the business analyst, members of the Power BI team can directly engage the project sponsor and other key stakeholders to officially engage in the project. These stakeholders include subject matter experts on the data source systems, business team members knowledgeable of the current state of reporting and analytics, and administrative or governance personnel with knowledge of organizational policies, available licenses, and current usage.

New Power BI projects of any significant scale and long-term adoption of Power BI within organizations require Dataset Designers, Report Authors, and a Power BI Admin(s), as illustrated in the following diagram:

Power BI team roles

Each of the three Power BI project roles and perhaps longer-term roles as part of a business intelligence team entail a distinct set of skills and responsibilities. It can be advantageous in a short-term or POC scenario for a single user to serve as both a dataset designer and a report author. However, the Power BI platform and the multi-faceted nature of Corporate BI deployments is too broad and dynamic for a single BI professional to adequately fulfill both roles. It's therefore recommended that team members either self-select or are assigned distinct roles based on their existing skills and experience and that each member develops advanced and current knowledge relevant to their role. A BI manager and/or a project manager can help facilitate effective communication across roles and between the BI team and other stakeholders, such as project sponsors.

Dataset designer

Power BI report visualizations and dashboard tiles are built on top of datasets, and each Power BI report is associated with a single dataset. Power BI datasets can import data from multiple data sources on a refresh schedule or can be configured to issue queries directly to a single data source to resolve report queries. Datasets are therefore a critical component of Power BI projects and their design has tremendous implications regarding user experience, query performance, source system and Power BI resource utilization, and more.

The dataset designer is responsible for the data access layer of the Power BI dataset, including the authentication to data sources and the M queries used to define the tables of the data model. Additionally, the dataset designer defines the relationships of the model and any required row-level security roles, and develops the DAX measure expressions for use in reports, such as year-to-date (YTD) sales. Given these responsibilities, the dataset designer should regularly communicate with data source owners or SMEs, as well as report authors. For example, the dataset designer needs to be aware of changes to data sources so that data access queries can be revised accordingly and report authors can advise of any additional measures or columns necessary to create new reports. Furthermore, the dataset designer should be aware of the performance and resource utilization of deployed datasets and should work with the Power BI admin on issues such as Power BI Premium capacity.

As per the Power BI team toles diagram, there are usually very few dataset designers in a team while there may be many report authors. This is largely due to the organizational objectives of version control and reusability, which leads to a small number of large datasets. Additionally, robust dataset development requires knowledge of the M and DAX functional programming languages, dimensional modeling practices, and business intelligence. Database experience is also very helpful. If multiple dataset designers are on a team they should look to standardize their development practices so that they can more easily learn and support each other's solutions.

A Power BI dataset designer often has experience in developing SSAS models, particularly SSAS tabular models. For organizations utilizing both SSAS and Power BI Desktop, this could be the same individual. Alternatively, users with experience of building models in Power Pivot for Excel may also prove to be capable Power BI dataset designers.

Report authors

Report authors interface directly with the consumers of reports and dashboards or a representative of this group. In a self-service deployment mode or a hybrid project (business and IT), a small number of report authors may themselves work within the business. Above all else, report authors must have a clear understanding of the business questions to be answered and the measures and attributes (columns) needed to visually analyze and answer these questions. The report author should also be knowledgeable of visualization best practices, such as symmetry and minimalism, in addition to any corporate standards for report formatting and layout.

Power BI Desktop provides a rich set of formatting properties and analytical features, giving report authors granular control over the appearance and behavior of visualizations.

Report authors should be very familiar with all standard capabilities, such as conditional formatting, drilldown, drillthrough, and cross-highlighting, as they often lead demonstrations or training sessions. Additionally, report authors should understand the organization's policies on custom visuals available in the MS Office store and the specific use cases for top or popular custom visuals.

Power BI admin

A Power BI admin is focused on the overall deployment of Power BI within an organization in terms of security, governance, and resource utilization. Power BI admins are not involved in the day-to-day activities of specific projects but rather configure and manage settings in Power BI that align with the organization's policies. A Power BI admin, for example, monitors the adoption of Power BI content, identifies any high-risk user activities, and manages any Power BI Premium capacities that have been provisioned. Additionally, Power BI admins use Azure Active Directory security groups within the Power BI admin portal to manage access to various Power BI features, such as sharing Power BI content with external organizations.

Users assigned to the Power BI service administrator role obtain access to the Power BI admin portal and the rights to configure Power BI Tenant settings. For example, in the following image, Anna Sanders is assigned to the Power BI service administrator role within the Office 365 admin center:

Assigning Power BI service admin role

The Power BI service administrator role allows Anna to access the Power BI admin portal to enable or disable features, such as exporting data and printing reports and dashboard. BI and IT managers that oversee Power BI deployments are often assigned to this role, as it also provides the ability to manage Power BI Premium capacities and access to standard monitoring and usage reporting. Note that only global administrators of Office 365 can assign users to the Power BI service administrator role.

The Power BI admin should have a clear understanding of the organizational policy on the various tenant settings, such as whether content can be shared with external users. For most tenant settings, the Power BI service administrator can define rules in the Power BI admin portal to include or exclude specific security groups. For example, external sharing can be disabled for the entire organization except for a specific security group of users. Most organizations should assign two or more users to the Power BI service administrator role and ensure these users are trained on the administration features specific to this role. Chapter 12, Administering Power BI for an Organization, contains details on the Power BI admin portal and other administrative topics.

Project role collaboration

Communicating and documenting project role assignments during the planning stage promotes the efficient use of time during the development and operations phases. For organizations committed to the Power BI platform as a component of a longer-term data strategy, the project roles may become full-time positions.

For example, BI developers with experience in DAX and/or SSAS tabular databases may be hired as dataset designers while BI developers with experience in data visualization tools and corporate report development may be hired as report authors:

Name	Project role
Brett Powell	Dataset Designer
Jennifer Lawrence	Report Author
Anna Sanders	Power BI Service Admin
Mark Langford	Report Author
Stacy Loeb	QA Tester