Govern Power BI workspaces: owners, external sharing, quarterly cleanup
Diesen Beitrag auf Deutsch lesen
A five-step routine for Power BI governance: inventory workspaces, assign two business admins, confirm external sharing, retire unused reports and keep audit evidence.
TL;DR
Power BI self-service grows faster than oversight. Five steps fix it: list every workspace with admins, members, reports and datasets; assign two admins from the business team per workspace; find workspaces shared with external users, confirm access and restrict external sharing in tenant settings; retire reports, dashboards and datasets unused for 90 days; repeat quarterly and record every confirmation for audits.
Original by Torsten Mandelkow, on Rencore Blog. Read the original
This is our own summary, not a republication or full translation.
Governance takeaway
- Admins/CoE: run the five-step cycle quarterly, inventory workspaces and artifacts, name two admins per workspace and chase owners whose confirmations are missing.
- Security/Compliance: review external user access on a shorter cycle than internal access and keep records of who confirmed or removed what as audit evidence.
- Leadership/Business: unused reports, datasets and licenses are cost, and duplicate reports without ownership mean no single source of truth, so back the cleanup.
- Makers: expect to be named owner or second admin for workspaces you publish and to confirm or retire external sharing when asked.
Frequently asked questions
Who should own a Power BI workspace and why two admins?
A named person in the business team that relies on the reports, plus a second admin so the workspace survives a departure. Orphaned workspaces cannot be fixed or retired.
How do I spot Power BI workspaces that include external users?
List workspaces whose members or viewers include external users, ask each owner to confirm the access, and restrict who may share outside the organization in the tenant settings.
When should unused Power BI reports be retired?
Reports, dashboards and datasets that nobody has opened in 90 days should be flagged to their owner for retirement, and quarterly cleanups also catch unused Pro or Premium Per User licenses.