Defining PBI Admin Success – Ep. 202

Power BI administration is one of those roles where silence can look like success — until a refresh fails, a gateway goes down, or a tenant setting blocks a critical workflow.

In Ep. 202, Mike, Tommy, and Seth talk through how to define (and prove) Power BI admin success in a way that’s operational: the guardrails you set, the enablement you provide, and the metrics you can use to show the platform is healthy, secure, and actually being used.

News & Announcements

• Power BI Deployment & Governance (Coates Data Strategies) — A structured program for rolling out Power BI with clear governance, guardrails, and operating rhythms.
• Hitchhiker’s Guide to Adopting Power BI (Coates Data Strategies) — Practical guidance for adoption: people, process, and platform patterns that stick.
• Submit an idea / topic — Send a question or scenario you want the team to break down on a future episode.
• Explicit Measures Podcast — Subscribe and browse the full episode backlog.
• Mike Carlo on LinkedIn — Modeling, DAX, and delivery lessons learned.
• Seth Bauer on LinkedIn — BI engineering and measurement strategy perspectives.
• Tommy Puglia on LinkedIn — Platform findings and field notes.
• Argus PBI — Friend of PowerBI.tips.

Main Discussion

A Power BI admin’s job is part platform engineering, part governance, and part customer success for internal teams. You’re managing tenant settings, workspace strategy, security, gateways/connectivity, and capacity/performance — while also making sure the organization can move fast without turning the tenant into the Wild West.

The team’s core point: admin success needs to be defined as outcomes you can operate and communicate (not just the absence of problems). That means agreeing on what ‘good’ looks like, putting repeatable processes behind it, and using telemetry to validate that the platform is improving over time.

Key takeaways:

• Define ownership up front: admin vs. governance vs. report building vs. support — and publish where to go for what.
• Treat tenant settings as guardrails with intent: document why they’re set, who can request changes, and what the risk tradeoff is.
• Standardize workspace patterns (naming, security model, dev/test/prod flow) so teams aren’t reinventing structure every project.
• Measure adoption with signals that matter: active users, content usage, refresh reliability, and the ‘top pain’ performance patterns.
• Build a lightweight intake path for new datasets/reports so the admin team isn’t the bottleneck (but also isn’t surprised).
• Invest in enablement (office hours, templates, examples) so governance feels like acceleration, not restriction.
• Review success on a cadence: pick a small set of monthly metrics and use them to drive the next improvement iteration.

Looking Forward

Pick one admin metric you can track monthly (adoption, reliability, or performance) and use it to guide your next platform improvement.

Episode Transcript

0:02 [Music] foreign good morning everyone welcome back to the explicit measures podcast with senior Tommy

0:33 senior Tommy the one and the only Seth Bauer and datamike datamike oh no there we go I think I’m going to coin it it’s gonna happen I only gotta sing now yeah maybe happy Tuesday gentlemen maybe if I come like away from the microphone I’m like yeah yeah yeah happy Tuesday I like that that works it’s a little bit of a sound effect but like a wine and then back into the microphone by the way it’s a happy Tuesday it is guys good to see you guys back to Tuesday happy Tuesday I feel like I’ve been seeing you

1:03 Tuesday I feel like I’ve been seeing you a lot recently I I feel the same funny how that happens so that’s like not enthused but I’m seeing you all the time excellent excellent well I I thought our summers were always the busy ones but I guess are you guys going to the beach or doing the spring training thing I wish I was doing spring training all the only training I do is training touching my keys on the keyboard spring break I think is what you meant actually

1:33 what you meant actually yes at this point in time I have now returned from the beach so for those of you who are listening this is a pre-recorded episode if you haven’t observed so there’s been some things that have occurred since this episode has has launched this should be the last pre-recorded episode yes hopefully for a while so Thursday will be live yes hopefully excited about that yeah yeah I hopefully excited about that yeah yeah now that I said it mean now that I said it pre-recorded episode it has to happen that way yeah exactly either I had a blast on spring break it was a great we

2:04 blast on spring break it was a great we had such so much fun I don’t know what we did but it was amazing The Best Time Ever for sure about to give you a real update on Thursday of what actually happened happened excellent so let’s jump into some of our topic pieces today so today we’re going to Define what what does the power bi admin role look like inside of the power bi environment so talking around what should the admin be doing and when is a successful admin running a

2:36 and when is a successful admin running a power bi environment what does that look like like so let’s jump in let’s go over what do we feel like is the role of the admin for power bi I guess control control shut it all down control this is this is where Tommy is going to shine today because oh yeah this is his think about this is his topic yeah coming from the business all this stuff when we first do what you want to do hundreds of episodes ago right big workspaces wherever you like no no you got to control this you gotta

3:06 no no you got to control this you gotta lock it down that’s true I’m gonna make it so users can’t do anything like Tommy Tommy you’re built built this is built for you you right yeah yeah it’s it’s very informed to look at a report until they send a request exactly exactly you you choose to view this report please sign this 50 page document and read that you have approved this yeah exactly orange for days I feel like when we were talking so Tommy you used to work at a company and I felt like there was a lot of central bi like

3:36 like there was a lot of central bi like the centralizing of the bi everything around power bi was running through your team around a business unit correct correct right like we have Central bi in a business Union like that doesn’t make any sense man so so I’m curious to see where we’re going to take this one now because because yeah this is so I’m working on I’m the leader of the power bi governance and an adoption class that we’ve been

4:07 an adoption class that we’ve been working through on coach data strategies so that’s been a thing that I’ve been heavily involved with this year but one of these areas that we talk a lot about what the admin should be doing is we use the concept of guard rails right we want to be able to give people some flexibility but then have company Comfort levels around what we’re actually letting people produce or build inside their environment so there’s this concept of that’s what I feel like the admin should be doing setting some good practices figuring out what is acceptable to be shared or not shared or

4:37 acceptable to be shared or not shared or how you share it inside your company and then the admin basically employs those settings inside the admin portal what do you think Tommy yes I really I’ve honestly I’ve been in both cases where yeah right this is going to be all right Tommy I’m always looking up at you guys but I always looking at you guys which is funny you’re like the tallest one of all that’s Tommy so it’s funny it’s the hair it’s the hair you got me yeah Tommy that’s a low blow there buddy

5:12 but honestly I’ve been in both cases where I’ve been part of the Hub or where there really wasn’t anything centralized but they were still governing things in place or at least still some process in place and yeah then I’ve been part of it of being completely centralized where it was the bi team everything for you honestly the biggest thing is it it goes to like three factors I think what you said is guard rails like just general from a security from what people can access

5:42 access and then it’s the access and then it’s just usability Honestly though like what I’ve always said and where I continue to hit home about the the control the restrictions is maybe I’ve just been so jaded or it’s still so fresh but nothing is worse for me when people have access to multiple reports or people can see things that they shouldn’t and they immediately start asking questions or

6:12 immediately start asking questions or they may just start questioning what they’re looking at and that was such a such a difficult thing to do when power bi was really rolling out we had reports we didn’t know who created them like they were looking at the person left the company like three months before that and people were still looking at this report that wasn’t updated and those types of situations where people like well I don’t know if yours is right I don’t know if this is right because they’re creating something too and it’s it’s really just about

6:43 too and it’s it’s really just about having at least a consistency whatever the pro whatever you’re delivering from the the bi team and and you’re dealing with something that again you got to be right so that’s where the restrictions start start okay so so I’m you said some things that very interesting and then I want to kind very interesting and then I want to tease out here a bit more you said of tease out here a bit more you said we have reports and we don’t know how many people are using them how is that the admin’s responsibility

7:15 we’re talking about admin hearing he brought up people looking at reports I don’t understand how that connects back to the admin now I am if you say that to me like so you say that well I do think the admin needs to be monitoring the activity of your power bi tenant so I think first and foremost every admin regardless of whatever you’re doing and we talk about this extensively in our class is you need to have like you can’t control anything unless what’s going on so if you don’t if you don’t understand how to use the apis to go get the activities if you don’t have the

7:46 the activities if you don’t have the scanner API running if you’re not grabbing that data or using the standard Microsoft reports that they have to help you start seeing what people are using content you can’t manage a tenant period you have to start there I agree we can we can talk into that but I in less time he wants a person respond in that vein I I have a different take on that okay okay questioning though oh on on Tommy’s question around yeah because it almost it almost sounds like that that could be and I don’t think

8:16 that that could be and I don’t think Tommy was saying this but it like is it the role of the admin to understand which reports are no longer tied to people that are actual owners so that either deprecation happens or they get moved into the right team okay okay that’s a good question I would I think I would put that role into the center of excellence building the process around deprecating their reports yeah but the center of excellence is just going to define the process and procedures it’s not an owner

8:47 process and procedures it’s not an owner oh well I’d agree it’s not an owner of the report so so okay so I’m a Coe and I say we we need to we need to build responsibility about deprecation and reports who can understand who no longer owns them and can assign them to different users the admin okay so let’s assume for a moment it’s the admins responsibility or are you just dead set against that well well I don’t that’s a good question right so I think I think the admin can move them around forcibly but the center

9:18 move them around forcibly but the center of excellence is that team so again I just want to ask this question too right is the admin part of the center of excellence I think they are see the the this is one of those things I do want to get there but sorry because I I I have questions like like who usually runs this in a company right but like let’s let’s live here for a second right like yeah deprecation of reports and reassigning them over to people I think that’s a really valuable function

9:49 function of someone and I agree I think it’s the

9:51 of someone and I agree I think it’s the admin because at least moving it into a direction of like hey these are still shared and viewed by people if people have requests or problems with them then that’s gonna yep like then you’re you’re easing the challenge around updating them or making sure that metrics like Tommy was defining are actually accurate or kept up to date otherwise they just go stale I don’t but I don’t think that’s the admins responsibility I think that’s part of a

10:22 responsibility I think that’s part of a deliverable that the center of excellence gives and maybe there’s a task around Center of Excellence is identifying the data that is relevant to that again depends on how big your company is right okay the center of excellence maybe like a couple people but it may be a larger group of people as well I think the center of excellence is more in tune with listening to what’s going on inside the power bi tenant pieces of that they have more responsibility than most and the center of excellence members or that that team may have to your point identify hey here’s a list of reports that have been deprecated or that no longer have owners

10:52 deprecated or that no longer have owners or failing regularly we need admin to go do something and since the admins are part of that that may be a task that they literally lift over to the admin because I’m not going to assume that power bi admin actually is inside power bi all the time they don’t I don’t think that’s the case and well I would say when I’ve observed this the larger the organization the more likely the tower bi tenant is not in the business hands there’s not someone who’s Direct tied into the cue directly reporting to your executive sponsor right so so let’s like

11:24 executive sponsor right so so let’s like it’s an I. T function who are yeah who are the admins in companies well there’s there’s admins yeah there’s admins of your your premium stuff right so there’s a premium admin typically yeah and then there’s like the whole tenant power bi admin right that’s kind tenant power bi admin right that’s the two admins I’m thinking about so of the two admins I’m thinking about so I I think we let’s let’s start at the top then who where who is that person who is the power bi administrator normally speaking in terms of the the in control the tenant settings there’s two

11:55 control the tenant settings there’s two of them okay right there’s one that’s coming from the bi team there’s a tenant admin there or if you’re a larger organization someone has a policy already that says that’s actually someone in it and that’s the person who’s already managing probably Azure or office 365. it’s probably that same person where they just glob onto them hey by the way here’s some other things you need to administer power apps power automate power bi Microsoft 365 and or Azure like that that person is be able to turn the dials on those things

12:25 to turn the dials on those things those are the two places where I see admins showing up so so that’s specific like you’re you’re saying the service and the licensing is it it and I don’t think it has to be it but usually it is involving I. T all right as soon as you start talking about two different people no no I said that role sits in two different areas right you can have a power bi admin that is at see I see I observe it in two places right I see one place I see the same same person

12:55 see one place I see the same same person right I’m managing someone asks for a pro subscription okay great we go to the power bi admin they do it right that may be someone that’s inside the business or part of the bi team that may I have also seen it that is a pure I. T person that says hey this guy already manages a bunch of other gal whatever this person already manages a bunch of things around licensing we’ve funneled that off to them and in larger organizations you see more of the breakdown or breaking between these different roles so you may actually have a power bi admin who’s not actually in control of the power bi Pro or premium

13:25 control of the power bi Pro or premium licenses that may be another person that they have to integrate with if you get big enough so you actually have to hand over request to hey we got to fill out a help desk ticket we got to get approval from their manager it’s going to be a cost center to them so that that larger Enterprise piece becomes more there’s more steps in order to get that process completed and so that that is a good distinction though where there is some admin roles or especially larger companies where that’s a few right now I’m making him fume

13:56 fume would you walk and see the video for those of you those of you who are not watching the video I think Seth I saw steam coming out of his ears just a moment ago in my mouth sorry Tommy I didn’t mean to interrupt go ahead I wonder actually why you’re getting so upset about this because one it’s just so common not that I necessarily agree with it but that yeah it’s the global admins the people who are in charge of probably servers too that also are the ones who are responsible for a lot of the tenant

14:27 are responsible for a lot of the tenant settings I wouldn’t say servers I think that’s a different skill set I’m I’m talking purely about like licensing and power bi settings so this is so I think I think there’s a I see that role being separate than administering your licenses and the power bi tenant settings generally speaking though you’re talking about someone who’s farther away from Power bi than they’re than they’re close in terms of okay right so this is the distinction I want to make in smaller organizations that person is very close to power bi right in smaller organizations there’s a

14:59 right in smaller organizations there’s a center of excellence of one it’s a person and they basically said we need to do power bi Tommy what you’re doing here you go figure it out and so you tell me you’re in charge of like licensing you’re in charge of like who has access to what you’re turning on premium if you want literally the bi team owns all of it and that’s because someone doesn’t the company is not large enough to have that I. T infrastructure in place as the company gets larger I’m saying though that role typically is not given to the bi team it’s typically hand parts of that are handed over to an i-team

15:29 that are handed over to an i-team because it already exists right they already have a person that’s managing Office 365 and other things and they say okay well you could you could just also do the power bi stuff they don’t know the settings that you need as a power bi user so it’s us it’s our responsibility as the center of excellence to inform and or work very closely with that power bi it admin if that exists in your company I’m sorry I’m trying not to make this confusing but I really I feel like the point does that make sense on the point yeah but I think the the pro the reason why that occurs is because the

16:00 reason why that occurs is because the power bi Global admin setting or the the tenant level settings for power bi it’s not they’re not doing it because well you’re also an admin for everything else in in our services is because honestly they treat it on the same access level as anything else in active directory when it’s not and I don’t think I disagree with you there I don’t I don’t I really don’t think I disagree because companies already set a policy that says this stuff is managed by it

16:30 by it it there’s there’s nothing to do with there’s nothing to do with surface like it’s already an existing policy and so what when when an IT admin or an IT VP or executive looks at this and goes okay let’s figure out what these roles mean what who’s going to manage the power be a tenant okay where do those settings get turned on or turn off okay they get turned on or off and Azure directive directory we already have a team that does that they do it like there’s existing policies that force that that direction but I don’t think that’s the most optimal for the power bi settings it doesn’t matter what you think it’s no matter what the company is going to

17:00 matter what the company is going to employ like you can’t you can’t walk into a company and say your your way of doing administration of Office 365 and active directory is wrong and we need you to change it now that’s why you have the center of excellence because they integrate with that team you can’t just come in and say that’s that’s not how we’re going to do it because that will fail every time so so could that leave you speechless no you always leave me speechless all right the

17:30 the I I think I think within here Mike I agree with you I think previously before power bi has become as popular as it is it was very it flew under the radar correct a lot of agreement of I. T infrastructure yes so where where I wanted to like dive a little bit is you just you were describing the roles of yes different areas within Administration yes and to me

18:00 me at like where I was stuck is I think as from a small company to a large one as you grow grow in organization size the roles become people people right so it’s a very it’s highly likely that an individual or a small set of individuals are the admins are the PowerPoint guys are everything and I struggle with some of the I. T functions because they’re not familiar with them

18:31 because they’re not familiar with them so then there’s the one it guy that like turns on something for them or gives them some access correct and they don’t necessarily know what powerbe is actually doing or anything they’re just like okay and and they may even push back a little bit and say hey why do you want to turn off publish to web what does that even mean and you have to be like you have to explain to them okay well this is why no what I would what I would say is more often than not in those smaller organizations those I. T folks are just going to Grant the tenant setting permissions they’re going to Grant I would agree with you yeah admin

19:01 Grant I would agree with you yeah admin for that person to manage the power bi attention I and I agree with you so to me that’s what happens in small medium to small organizations right when there’s not enough team members to really Enterprise manage it well you’re not in a very regulated industry like Finance or HR or we know Healthcare they just delineate they just offload it okay Tommy you just take it right boom done yes I agree with that so so this is where I jump on jump on the the push down Tommy band bacon oh no as as you grow

19:32 oh no as as you grow like there are there are those hard things that when recognized by an organization you will not get around

19:40 organization you will not get around policy being the the least of them but with with I. T Administration like they care about costs yes permissions and which like who has access to things and the legal ramifications of what people can and can’t do within the systems right yeah like all of those have really core core threads into executive

20:12 threads into executive leadership teams who really care about that and if something goes awry right yeah somebody’s neck on the line which is why these teams exist like as it right as it goes up yeah play more across streams you have to play Within the bounds of the policies and processes that are set up and there is a specific reason for that because somebody is accountable for those things as opposed in smaller organizations I agree places that are a

20:43 organizations I agree places that are a little more loosey-goosey it’s not a big deal until it becomes a big deal right exactly right to you yes just because you aren’t doing these things right now doesn’t mean that your organization doesn’t expect somebody is doing them right especially when it hits those four or four areas and that’s where like the role shaking your head at me tell me the removal of the admin comes into play like and some of the the access and accessibility that

21:13 accessibility that comes with what those tenant settings and license costs and all the things and implementation roll onto somebody’s head so I think there’s the Mike and there’s the other side of the coin not the other side of the coin but there’s the lower level admin I guess because a lot of things we’re talking about right now are the tenant level settings right from the enablement who can do a pipeline who can’t but I think we’d all agree or I’m

21:43 can’t but I think we’d all agree or I’m assuming we’ll all agree there’s a a another layer that’s I required or needed from a governing and who’s ultimately involved in the power bi project project because again that admin is dealing with other other administrations other tools like they’re not thinking about what’s the latest and greatest in power bi or bi or what’s what is a deployment pipeline should we give everyone access to that they’re they’re not really into

22:15 to that they’re they’re not really into intertwined with that I think you do need someone to who went out into the new features are coming out or the policies around I think is probably more the policies around workspaces and access the policies around how our contents shared that would not be this Global admins role and I think that’s what we’re really the oh I agree with you but that’s the center of excellence your center of excellence whether it be one person or that admin role defines

22:45 one person or that admin role defines those things Okay can Okay can so I’m talking about so there if you’re talking specific like feature like turning switches on or off inside the admin portal yeah it’s an admin but Tommy what you just referred to it all those functions Define a policy how do I request a workspace how do I request an access to a Gateway what are the those things are part of that Center of Excellence a deliverables they go back to the organization and report back to their executive sponsor around those things as well it’s a large a large pet peeve of mine

23:18 it’s a large a large pet peeve of mine which I’m reframing my question Mike as opposed to just lashing out like I do is is the overuse of Coe have you actually seen if we’re talking about one person in a small organization that is handling all these roles yeah like you’ve actually helped or seen people build a Coe from one person and and the organization itself follows policies and processes and procedures

23:48 policies and processes and procedures that that one person is establishing within the organization yeah I’ve actually have company I have customers today that I’ve worked with the one person and we’ve we’ve made them the Coe they’re now engaging with their executive sponsor they’re defining what policies look like under under Consulting help guidance right we’re saying here’s policies and things you should be looking for these are things that you should be suggesting they go back and review that with their executive sponsor executive sponsor approves and they get it done these these policies are then documented put on a SharePoint page that everyone can follow so these are things like best

24:19 follow so these are things like best practices right these are how we share things we have patterns around how do you add how many people to a workspace requesting a workspace right these are policies we’re talking about there we also review with that person say hey here’s some surface area in the admin settings that you may or may not know about now I agree there’s that’s that’s the starting point that’s small organizations with one person because there’s not technically an integration with that person to the legal team or I. T at that point eventually what happens and this is what’s been happening with this client it’s grown to

24:49 happening with this client it’s grown to a point where now the executive sponsor understands that this is becoming important and now other teams are being engaged and they’re being brought into the center of excellence now there’s other members so now we have people from Finance representing we have now people from HR in other areas because they want access to power bi and in order to plague all with what we’re doing in power bi this department led the helm it started things and so now they’re setting up the standard for things and now other people are joining in so that Center actions is growing because now it’s becoming it’s it’s acting

25:20 it’s becoming it’s it’s acting like as if it was a small business but now the larger part of the business is growing it and now additional feedback is being generated but this is great because now at least we have a starting point and I hate going into meetings where no one has an agenda we’re just like hey let’s decide on something this is the other approach we’ve already said here’s our policies here’s what we said is a good practice okay legal tell us what we’re wrong on what do we need to refine the policy and then we tweak it to what they want and then it becomes integrated into the bigger broader policy but we already have a distribution method to take that

25:50 distribution method to take that information in build the policies and put those policies directly into a public-facing site so there’s no question when people need to know what’s going on so I’m glad I didn’t just go with my whim of like I’ve heard a lot of like oh yeah we can just flippantly use the term Coe and it goes oh no no no no it takes a lot of

26:21 goes oh no no no no it takes a lot of work yeah to start to assign yes you work yeah to start to assign yes that that number yeah yeah okay and know that that number yeah yeah okay and I would also arcue too like if you look at Microsoft documentation right the Coe is a Consortium of multiple people agree engaged across multiple business units Ideally you want many participants mean ideally you want many participants now the reason you think about this this way is because the center of excellence is responsible for some very key deliverables one of them being monitoring one of them being generating policies one of them being generating training right they are responsible for building the data culture including

26:51 building the data culture including power bi as a tool but then helping the broader part of the organization to educate so you’re do we actually have as my company I offer a center of excellence accelerator you don’t know what you’re doing great hire us we know how to run Center of excellences we’ll come in and we’ll do a Power Hour for you we’ll run regular office hour meetings giving you best practices for your team we’ll work with your center of excellence leader or your your bi lead and say okay here’s the things you need to be thinking about where are their challenges we will help you get over those hurdles so that is a service that

27:22 those hurdles so that is a service that I think a lot of organizations need because to your point Seth they don’t understand the grow-up story or the pattern of how do you start small start organically build structure that it can grow into better the bigger part of the organization sweet thanks for clarifying that Mike sorry I’ve been spending oh I’m sorry I’ve been spending a ton of time on this topic this is like all consuming my mind because I have a number of clients that I’m working through this exact same issue what does an admin mean and how do you integrate it and where does this sit

27:52 you integrate it and where does this sit inside our our structure well it it might get really sounds like this this role is almost 60 40 with it from the adoption point I love how you put numbers on everything Tommy 60 40 with the adoption roadmap yeah well they’re they’re more focused on adoption and promotion than they are on in a sense from the policy point of view because obviously the way we’re talking about this now we’re bleeding well we’re bleeding into governance we’re bleeding

28:22 bleeding into governance we’re bleeding into promotion but I agree with you I agree with you I think but I think I want to say that scale that 60 40 is not an always standard thing right there there becomes there comes a growth method within the organization where initially you’re probably doing 60 40. right they’re coming in and a lot of the the cue is doing a lot of Education that’s not admin so I want to focus more on admin things but initially you’re probably doing a lot of Education eventually as the as it grows in the organization you start finding subject matter experts who are now part of the

28:52 matter experts who are now part of the community of practice who are then helping identify and and service the broader data culture around building this in your organization and that’s where I see things getting very exciting because now you start seeing again from the admin side right you have monitoring who’s building reports who’s in most engaged from an activity level in your tenant again you have to start there if you don’t have monitoring you’re already behind the eight ball those power bi Champions so what Microsoft calls them in their documentation the champion is the one

29:23 documentation the champion is the one that can now help other users it’s their Force multiplier to education and best practices and figuring out problems and

29:29 practices and figuring out problems and solutions that that portion really enables this whole power bi thing to grow well and now you start building data culture at that point in time that cue or admin can now focus more on policy and internal deliverables directly to the executive sponsor and back to the business with the difficulty of generating monitoring on an environment is it the admin’s responsibility to create that or is that a bi developer with elevated permissions it could be both but I find there’s actually I. T hurdles that you need to turn on there’s

29:59 hurdles that you need to turn on there’s certain things that it needs to be able to build and the the sheer volume of data that you can go get becomes a problem very quickly so if you’re if you’re doing monitoring the activity monitoring is not easy to set up there’s a lot of complication with the apis the apis are not simple and straightforward to look through Microsoft is continually adding you just saw the metadata additional metadata pop out so those things are going to continually be evolving so you have to be able to think about okay what do we really want to measure and so that’s sorry another thing I have an accelerator for that too surprise I’ve built this for people and

30:30 surprise I’ve built this for people and I I deploy this as a solution hey here’s all the pipelines to get all the information into your environment here’s the tables of data you need and here’s a handful of reports that are having this Insight is talked about on this page like insights like who has access to what information how many artifacts do you have in our tenant how many artifacts are certified or not certified right these are basic questions that are very difficult to get answers to because you have to comb through all the API data and when stuff starts going south especially when you’re on premium premium causes another whole layer of

31:01 premium causes another whole layer of complications because in premium you now have people abusing those premiums instances and I have other clients where we have many many premium environments up and running where a majority of those data sets are below a pro level subscription so meaning you could lift out a ton of data sets put them on Pro which has a one gigabyte limit on or under thus therefore reducing the load on your premium and you could actually kill some of your premium subscriptions you want to look like a hero

31:31 you want to look like a hero go do an analysis like you start ripping stuff out of certain workspaces yeah you start moving differently yeah you want to look like a hero go into your boss and say I’m Gonna Save you 60 to 120 000 a year by turning off premium that pays for your salary right there so so we do that like so that’s the idea is like we come in you can’t but you can’t do that unless you have really robust monitoring setup in place you have to look at the monitoring what’s going on and are those really big data sets even being used they may not be you may need to kill

32:01 they may not be you may need to kill them so that’s where the admin really starts accelerating the the needs of the business and so we’re coming into hard Economic Times companies will want to reduce costs so if you don’t have this in place if you’re not looking this information you’re going to you can just throw money at the problem and it will still work you now need to start looking at optimizing and that’s the that’s a clear role of the admin I would say okay so let’s break this down because honestly the I think I’ve overwhelmed everyone

32:31 everyone you’ve been off on a tangent which was fine yeah it’s it’s it was relevant ish the discussion of the admin go ahead tell me tell me so yes the monitoring obviously there’s there should be default regardless if you have a Coe in place or regardless you should say yeah oh

33:02 regardless you should say yeah oh it’s there’s not there’s options but it seriously again that goes back to us tracking our own numbers I think that the biggest thing is again when you look at the difference can you at least see the difference between a governance program or at least an Administration program that’s effective compared to one where again it’s more like the global it’s handling everything where if you were to say you are part of the power bi Administration and yeah you may be monitoring but honestly I think a

33:33 may be monitoring but honestly I think a lot of times you’re you’re especially larger organizations you’re relying on the teams to manage their content a bit right because they’ve oh 100 yeah admin is not this is the guardrails portion 100 you don’t want you don’t want to be managing and admin should not be going in and telling every team which what to do the admin should be going around saying hey Tommy you have a team of people let’s look at your workspaces what what’s what workspaces do you need to do your business okay how

34:03 do you need to do your business okay how many admins you have on that account if you have seven or eight admins on that workspace that’s wrong that’s totally wrong because now we don’t know who to go to when there’s any issues how many members do you have in that workspace if you have a ton of members they’re very they’re just slightly limited compared to what the admin can do but you should only have one or two members the majority of your users in a workspace should only be contributors or viewers and if and if the the admin is the one checking on those things and working with you Tommy the owner of that

34:33 with you Tommy the owner of that workspace to say okay of this content that’s coming from this workspace who is going to be the ownership ownership how do you identify that data stewardship portion that falls onto the individuals that are part of admin and member of that workspace you’re delegating that you don’t want the admin to be able to manage and own all those things things no and I think a big part of that too is that’s policies and process that I think are are that need to come in a sense from top down and I think that from

35:05 from top down and I think that from from tackling this from a hierarchy or at least from a structurer to work with a a larger group is yeah you’re you’re almost out of the global admin and I think success is going to rely on the different layers of responsibility so yes Global admin tenant settings ideally I’m going to still push forward that that can you can convince enough that that can be someone more involved in the power bi side because again all the settings in the tenant at least in power bi only affect

35:36 tenant at least in power bi only affect power bi it doesn’t it’s not like active directory work and go out somewhere but everything said yes and no you have you have the whole the idea of app registrations and app service principles yeah and that touches so there are settings inside your power bi tenant that influence a lot of other things that are inside Azure you also have tenant settings that influence can you use blob storage on a store on a power bi workspace or not that’s also a blob storage account that lives in Azure so to say it’s to say purely that

36:06 so to say it’s to say purely that power bi 10 Eminence settings are only in power bi that’s a that’s not right I in power bi that’s a that’s not right there’s definitely yeah you’re mean there’s definitely yeah you’re right you’re right there’s other things that you had so that’s why I think you find that the more you go into the admin settings of power bi that that role is now shared between a power bi person and someone that’s in more I. T because now you need Azure access to things and especially if you’re doing powerba premium embedded so I would argue I would argue that that is the best case scenario where you have I agree individuals that are sharing yes

36:36 agree individuals that are sharing yes different administrative responsibilities because they’re going to have to have different skill sets yes and and cares right so if if ultimately your I. T administrator right is the one that is responsible and they will be for right for the costs for the licensing how Services work within their environment then what they’re doing in essence is giving some of that responsibility to the power bi admin right who controls

37:09 to the power bi admin right who controls tenant settings what access levels like because that that’s the permissions thing right and we have the right people assigned to the right things in the right locations but I think ultimately where this this drives for me like what the role of the admin is goes back to Mike I love the the guardrails thing and it probably came out of the the trainings but what guardrails do and and it’s interesting that admin roles don’t get talked about I don’t think

37:39 don’t get talked about I don’t think from an initiative standpoint right I would agree especially with a a tool like power bi that is catches catches fire and people want to use it like it just gets stood up right but thinking through things from an administrative standpoint not to lock people down but to provide the guard rails makes it easier for people to use which means you’re going to get easier adoption because people don’t in an organization don’t

38:11 people don’t in an organization don’t have the level of understanding or care about what workspace or how they’re supposed to operate in an environment all they care about and all they should care about is I’ve built a report I need to know where how I can share that with people right or I built a report I needed to be assigned here and here and this is also I think where a good opportunity in a well-administrated environment is allows for like Champions or elevated

38:44 is allows for like Champions or elevated users to have specific permissions that the rest of the organization does not because you wouldn’t want to open up those those preview features or those things that could produce liability for the organization into the organization without people understanding more more of the complexity around some of the the use cases of things that you can enable enable I agree I agree and I think that’s a good way of looking at that that role as well there

39:14 at that that role as well there yeah I I think and I like the idea that you talked about the two role Seth because again I think Administration

39:21 because again I think Administration again I would Echo here a little bit some because there is potentially multiple surface areas or multiple touch points of one and where Administration sits right I think that’s a function of let’s call it broadly the center of excellence that Center of Excellence could identify a single person to be that person that’s the admin or it could be the center of excellence is now an integration of two people that is one the power bi tenant admin and two an active directory and or person from Azure helping out with that portion and three potentially

39:52 that portion and three potentially another person that’s talking about the licensing options because this is my biggest gripe with power bi there are multiple way to license part of that product you could do it through Azure through some stuff that needs to be built there you can do it through Office 365 because you need the pro licenses and you can do it through powerba. com you can’t license things but you can turn things on and off there so because there are three separate control surface areas of what’s occurring in power bi you you need more people potentially involved there or one person that can do it all of it I don’t care either way so I want to go back here to like really

40:23 so I want to go back here to like really the end of this is what does success look like for this admin when is when is this when is this admin winning what do you guys see that look like because we’ve talked a lot about like where the administration stuff lives and who may control it or own it but I feel like there are signs of when this is a successful Administration process so I I think the biggest things is is it’s probably part of the mix just like

40:53 it’s probably part of the mix just like everything we talked about of the adoption and from the the governor’s point of view where I think you if you’re seeing an impactful admin who is going more than just above and beyond that they’re not again the role of an administrator I think you’re seeing one you’re getting people in the right places so from a Content point of view so one thing I think you would imagine is is from from organization because they are

41:23 organization because they are responsible for making sure that the apps are being used and that the content is being shared the right way and like you said with the scanner the monitoring app is to be very easy to see what the contents shared with whom so it sounds like you’re saying again I’m gonna maybe read bird Smith what you said so I understand what you’re saying it sounds like you’re saying there are certain kpi metrics that are around usage that the admin if if the admin is doing a good job administering we will see in either an uptick in usage or

41:54 see in either an uptick in usage or we’ll see sustained consistent usage on various assets is that what you’re saying exactly okay and I would again Echo you need it you need a Google to do that to be able to monitor that information you need to have power bi monitoring embedded inside your system so admins need to be able to build that and maintain it and and know what’s going on so that’s rule number one I’d also Echo admins a successful admin measurement would be either savings on the power bi existing environment if you are a large

42:24 existing environment if you are a large organization and you have the amount of spend so you would look at the spend of your power bi environment and admins should be cost optimizing that so taking things out that are inefficient turn them off so I think there’s a dollar spend or a report around how much spend is occurring around power bi and what is the admin doing to administer that and make that as efficient as possible so I think another successful win for the admin is cost targets potentially and looking at what that looks like for

42:54 and looking at what that looks like for your organization okay so any new time cost quite a bit well if you have three p ones premium subscriptions and you can turn one off by doing a better job administering you just saved your company sixty thousand dollars a year like that’s huge like or or if you have like a mix of pro and premium per user things right maybe I have workspaces in Dev test prod they’re all in premium maybe I

43:24 test prod they’re all in premium maybe I don’t need that maybe you can turn off One Premium and get rid of a Dev test and put those in premium per user and use P1 only on your production environments like there’s a whole bunch of combinations that the admin could be doing I think that’s a measure I think another measure of success of an admin is how many policies have been documented and placed in the community area they may not do that on their own but they certainly I would agree one of my points is I I certainly agree that they should be making policy recommendations based on the implementation things and

43:56 based on the implementation things and they and recommendations and they need to follow through with the documentation of it just because you have a policy through it like fine make the recommendation but that admin needs to own documenting it make the flowchart do the racy of what that looks like and then put that information inside the community of practice Library SharePoint Confluence whatever you want to call it because if you make a policy and no one knows about that Authority is what I’m saying right like typically an admin isn’t going to be able to just be like policy Boom everybody follows it no without some approval but no

44:27 without some approval but no agree but once it’s approved where does it go so I’m not talking about the approval process of the policy the at the admin should come up with what the policy should look like right here’s my suggestion it gets it gets opened up we have we send out a power automate flow and say okay here’s a policy everyone who’s in everyone who’s involved you who’s in everyone who’s involved it like you basically do you’re know it like you basically do you’re racy right we have it involved we have HR involved we have whatever whatever the teams are that need to be involved with that you you identify those people and say okay we’re now introducing a new policy policy how do these teams get approval of that

44:58 how do these teams get approval of that and then it runs through the approval list and then everyone gets the power automate they approve the document boom but document’s done okay now that admin needs to to take that bundled up information and publish that right to the Community Practice okay here’s our list of policies and so a sign of a good admin is you’re seeing policies get through this process get through approvals and be able to land themselves inside the center of excellence so you’re seeing the maintenance and growth of adequate power bi policies around the ecosystem

45:33 I think the other thing too is from the feature point of view the admin has has to be on I don’t want to say The Cutting Edge but let’s talk about like an object that that’s coming out that’s going to be rolled out or the app audiences I think the admin should have some sway to say hey we’re going to migrate what we’re doing to these new features if there’s a form if there’s formatting panes that are drastically different or there’s something in this service disagree that’s that’s not a role of the

46:04 disagree that’s that’s not a role of the admin that’s a role of the center of excellence that that is training and education so I disagree with that point that’s not going to be like that role is not part of the admin person the admin should not be working on those things now the admin may be thinking about hey adoption like the the audiences there’s a policy likely around what audiences mean how do we use it what are we allowed to share is a data set certified or relative to like so we’re building an app okay any certified data sets or any certified apps do you allow people to build their

46:36 apps do you allow people to build their own reports on top of it those are policies and things that with or do you allow audiences inside certified apps Maybe not maybe you do again it’s kind Maybe not maybe you do again it’s preference of the organization what of preference of the organization what you want the service of the app to be doing I believe the admins responsible for for looking at those features new features and understanding what they do or implicate to the power bi environment that they’re not the one educating people on on visual editing they’re not the ones executing on how to use audiences that’s a different functionality

47:07 functionality okay okay I I think for the sake of time we can we can keep going on that because we’ll we’ll agree to disagree on that one but I think regardless there’s from what I’m getting from the conversation today the admin as formerly known as not not necessarily the admin that you normally think of again again sitting in the also the managing devices they’re a little more hybrid I think we could agree on this they’re

47:37 think we could agree on this they’re hybrid between the governance program and the adoption definition maybe but governance is typically the data part of things yeah when we’re talking about Administration I’m I’m on board with Mike the success how do I define success and goals for the power bi admin right they can they control the power bi ecosystem yes people playing yeah right and a lot of those things it like in my bullet

48:08 of those things it like in my bullet list resonate with what Mike said costs that could be reduction sustaining current usage usage growth projections of what they’re seeing in the environment to prep the business and understanding that there’s going to be a licensed capacity increase at some point policy recommendations and documentation they can monitor and respond to questions of what’s going on in the ecosystem identifying risks I think there’s a separate audience also for monitoring reporting it’s not like they have to own everything that’s going on because to my earlier Point deprecated

48:39 because to my earlier Point deprecated reports premium users whatever like there’s probably a lot of information that can get past passed on and owned by other teams as opposed to that person agreed agreed they configure the system so it works as the organization expects it to right the tenant settings Access Control right process there has to be a process for how groups get created ad groups how they get used within workspaces at admins and workspace like Mike said whether that’s an individual or an R group or our area we have a group right

49:11 group or our area we have a group right we have a single group that gets as admin control for all of our workspaces so that that list of small that small list of users has the appropriate permissions and that’s the go-to for it and then individual users and how those get assigned or shared content within the organization right all that should have a policy around it which is a guard rail rail and then ultimately the last thing I would say is like they’re responsible for maintaining the environment so any systemic issue issues that come up in

49:42 systemic issue issues that come up in those and handling any Microsoft tickets that relate to like hey wider outspread usages that are impacting impacting embedded the premium capacity like they’re monitoring those high level things and that’s plenty to do right like across the board and that could be like the shared responsibilities but I a lot of that could be on the lower level of like the person who really understands power bi and the ecosystem itself because if you’re doing all those

50:14 itself because if you’re doing all those things on a a regular basis like you’re going to have plenty to do yes I agree I I think a lot of the Tommy I think you’re talking about really good things but I think you’re conflating the idea of some of the things that are talking about the center of excellence versus what an admin does and I think I’m trying to really hone in on like some of those those core skills around literally Administration and then any of the teaching or education or training pieces not really admin that’s that’s more in that Center of Excellence broader

50:44 that Center of Excellence broader Spectrum so and and what is it’s why this is confusing is because the admin is a part 100 the admin is a part of that Center of Excellence there just maybe one person doing all those things and again that’s a smaller organization type lens when large organizations get involved I think that lens starts to change and that’s that’s why I have this very strong stance on the the deliverables of the admin are very specific to control control surface areas and and to building out the policies if

51:15 and and to building out the policies if if there’s one area where you have an individual that’s just writing documentation or process flows or things that other people would digest in that format it’s probably an admin like they’re they’re not going to be the person who’s training people that like how to use an ecosystem yeah like because to my earlier point I think those policy recommendations and how things work as it relates to ensuring people are using the environment the way people we want them to that would just be hey how do you go do

51:47 that would just be hey how do you go do that and then other folks are like hey when we teach you how to use power bi and share here’s the policies you can look at and how we do things and who you have to go request access to and from and and potentially there’s another outside of this where there could be some reporting and I don’t see a lot of this but I like the idea that I’m just coming up with where you have if we want people to use Azure directory groups as a sharing mechanism yes we do have to make those those groups available and

52:18 make those those groups available and like ownership of some people yeah well to the organization like how would I know if I’m coming in whether or not a group’s been created for my area exactly or a particular thing or my workspace correct so that’s part of it I think that’s part of also the process that you’re so that’s part of the policies that you’re going to do right because that is a process check that you do a part of that that flow diagram right so request new workspace one of the checks for that admin is oh hey look I got a request okay this is Mike he’s in this department are there any other

52:48 in this department are there any other workspaces that he should be a part of hey Mike did about there’s these other workspaces do you need those yes or no okay no okay this is net new that then becomes reviewed and then and then it follows again this is all policy based things that I think the admin comes up with but that then workflows that through to be able to deliver the value from that but I almost wonder like that that seems to me to be an area where we could you could reduce vastly reduce the number of tickets coming in for requests like that if like if you

53:18 for requests like that if like if you held close to your chest like just the executive level groups or things like that but the vast majority of other AD groups related to power bi are known to the organization or you frame those in a report such that if people are coming in from a business unit they’d be able to easily identify the group that they should use as opposed to always making that a request to it what I’m saying like it it would be very easy to you want to share a report go check to see

53:49 want to share a report go check to see whether or not that group exists and the people are in it that you would want there should be a general one for your business unit if you want something let more specific Etc you would already understand that we created one for you you can go use it right and then it would be the responsibility of the admin or Coe or whatever bi team to maintain and make sure that that report is up to date on it I agree but I think that would be a huge way of like reducing a lot of the noise that occurs around what do you mean I can’t share with an individual right yeah yeah

54:20 share with an individual right yeah yeah I agree I agree okay cool all right I think it’s it’s that time again we’re now at the Jeep chat check it out check it out chat GPT I’m I’m working like every episode I’m trying to work out like all right I like that one let’s check it out check it out chat GPT so we’re gonna then verify our answers again so what the internet says this is scanning the entire internet with chat EPT and giving us the best answer maybe we should start using Bing chat just Bing it Microsoft would love us if we just started using that that segment now maybe hey

54:51 that that segment now maybe hey Microsoft if you want a sponsor for Bing chat let me know we will incorporate it into the the podcast for a low low price of a lot of money a lot of money all right so first question first question I asked chat gpg was what is a power bi administrator that’s what we’ve been talking about and I said a power bi it says back to us a power bi administrator is a person responsible for managing and maintaining the power bi environment organization I think we agree with that one it includes tasks such as creating and managing users

55:22 such as creating and managing users groups permissions configuring security settings and setting up gateways we didn’t talk about gateways but I agree that’s a good one that should be on the list that’s a that’s a gate we should be there a power bi business analytics service by just goes into like a general thing like hey this is a power bi Service skimming through here okay to ensure their security reliability the power bi environment an administrator is needed to manage the back end tasks to ensure a smooth functioning system that’s a great language there that that

55:52 that’s a great language there that that is what the power bi administrator’s job’s main role is enabling a back-end task and smooth functioning of the system I’m literally copying that out right now I’m putting that in our notebook because this is when this is a winner it’s it’s the maintenance yeah but I I do agree like they are the people that well it would also have access to the systems to create Enterprise gateways right that people should be using yeah and that would be another one that we miss talking about because that should also be like disseminated in some way shape or form that would allow 100

56:22 way shape or form that would allow 100 permission people to use those yeah agreed okay and then I asked a follow-up question because this is what we’re talking about we’ll see how well this works this may fall flat on its face what are the tasks for the power bi administrators what I asked okay here we go Tommy let’s see if you’re in this one I don’t know all right first and foremost number one managing users and groups we agree on that one 100 configuring security literally setting up security policies authentication missions and data encryption to ensure that they’re

56:52 encryption to ensure that they’re protected from unauthorized access on a percent agree through there installing and configuring gateways number three you also agree with that one one managing data sources we didn’t talk about this but this is a really good point connecting to various data sources managing data models and ensuring data quality to supporting reporting and analytics ah so I think this is a Miss I think managing data sources the way it’s described here is more of a function of the center of excellence and even pushed all the way down to the admins at the workspace level so I disagree with that

57:22 workspace level so I disagree with that one there yeah I agree I agree with you and then another one it says here creating and managing reports and dashboards don’t agree with that one don’t think that’s now this one I do agree number six monitoring the usage and performance monitoring usage managing reports around dashboards and reports that support the power bi service troubleshooting any issues that may arise totally agree with that one that one and then ensuring compliance Seth you brought this one up compliance around regulatory things for legal ensuring the use of power bi complies with internal

57:53 use of power bi complies with internal policies industry standards regulations such as gdpr HIPAA and socks compliance and they spelled socks wrong so which is funny because I’ve gone through that before people and yes but yes the idea is is there as well and then lastly oh Tommy you caught it here chat GPT at the very end says providing training and support to end users helping them to use power bi efficiently and effectively but I would argue that’s not an admin function that’s a center of excellence function but that’s I think

58:23 excellence function but that’s I think but to your point though Tommy it’s a new it’s a nuanced feature anyways all right we’ve burned through a particularly good hour of time thank you very much for listening to podcast heated discussion today I feel like this has been a lot like more like intense than our pre other podcast not much laughing so I apologize for that one but very good conversation nonetheless thank you all very much for listening we hope this helps you out with a little bit of your power bi governance and administration thoughts tell me where else can you find the podcast you can find it anywhere it’s available Apple Spotify YouTube make

58:53 available Apple Spotify YouTube make sure to join the conversation live every Tuesday and Thursday at 7 30 a. m Central awesome thank you all very much appreciate it see you next time

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