Glossary
What is workspace?
A workspace is an environment in the Power BI service in which a team manages reports, dashboards and semantic models. Users are given a role in it: Admin, Member, Contributor or Viewer.
Workspace explained
A workspace is where reports and semantic models are published and managed. The four roles differ considerably: Admins and Members can manage and share content, Contributors can create and edit content, and Viewers can only view. Worth knowing: row-level security applies only to Viewers, not to Admins, Members or Contributors.
Many organisations use a separate workspace per department or per stage, such as development, test and production. From a workspace you can also publish a Power BI app, a curated set of reports for a wider group of readers.
A workspace sits on shared capacity or on a paid capacity. To embed reports in your own application, the workspace must be on a suitable capacity and the application must have access to it.
Example
Acme Groothandel has a "Finance - production" workspace with the final reports and a "Finance - development" workspace where the BI specialist tests new versions. Only the production workspace is linked to the customer portal.
Workspace in ENABLE
ENABLE links a Power BI workspace to each customer's portal; without a linked workspace a portal currently cannot be activated. The customer's service principal has access to that workspace, and in ENABLE you use access profiles to decide which reports each user sees.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What roles are there in a Power BI workspace?
There are four roles: Admin, Member, Contributor and Viewer. Admins and Members can manage and share content, Contributors can create and edit content, and Viewers can only view.
Does row-level security apply to everyone in a workspace?
No, RLS applies only to users with the Viewer role. Admins, Members and Contributors see all data in the semantic model, so never give external readers one of those roles.
What is the difference between a workspace and a Power BI app?
A workspace is where you build and manage content. An app is a published, curated view of that content for a larger group of readers.
Further reading
- ResourcesShare Power BI dashboards securely: your optionsYou can share a Power BI dashboard in four ways: Publish to web, sharing in the Power BI service (directly or through an app), inviting external users as B2B guest users, or showing the reports in a portal with Power BI Embedded. For colleagues, the Power BI service is usually enough. To share Power BI dashboards securely with customers, suppliers and other external users, guest users or a customer portal are the right choice; Publish to web is public and never suitable for business data.Read more
- IntegrationPower BI embedded portal: share dashboards securelyPower BI reports embedded in your own portal, with access by role and RLS.Read more
- SolutionPower BI dashboard portal: share dashboards securelyShare your Power BI dashboards securely in your own portal, with role-based access.Read more
- ResourcesGlossary of data, AI and Power BI termsWhat is a service principal, row-level security, a semantic model, text-to-SQL or RAG? Short, clear definitions of terms around data, Power BI and AI.Read more
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