PBI Laptop to Cloud – Ep. 245

A lot of Power BI work starts as a single PBIX on a single machine. The moment it becomes “for the team,” the problems change: the report must refresh without you logged in, credentials need an owner, and on-prem data sources suddenly require a real connectivity plan.

In Episode 245, Mike, Tommy, and Seth talk through that transition—from laptop to cloud—with a focus on the on-premises data gateway, credential hygiene, and what “production-ready” actually means in the Power BI service.

News & Announcements

• On-premises data gateway documentation — The canonical reference for installing, securing, and troubleshooting the gateway that lets the Power BI service reach on-prem data sources.

• Submit a topic idea — Drop a question or scenario for the mailbag.

• Subscribe to the Explicit Measures podcast — Catch new episodes and browse the full back catalog.

• Tips+ Theme Generator — Generate consistent report themes in minutes.

• Mike Carlo on LinkedIn — Episode updates, demos, and Power BI/Fabric tips.

• Seth Bauer on LinkedIn — Practical engineering perspective on analytics delivery.

• Tommy Puglia on LinkedIn — Leadership and real-world BI lessons from the field.

Main Discussion

The core idea is simple: publishing a report is a handoff from personal development to shared operations. That handoff has a checklist, and skipping steps is how you end up with the classic “it works on my machine” dataset.

Here are the points that matter most when you move from local development to something your organization can trust:

• Decide what you’re promoting: is the semantic model the product, the report, or both? Treat the model like an asset that can serve many reports.
• Plan gateway ownership up front: who installs it, patches it, monitors it, and gets paged when refresh fails?
• Use service-friendly credentials: avoid personal accounts as the long-term refresh identity; make ownership and rotation explicit.
• Treat refresh like a reliability feature: validate schedules, timeouts, and data source connectivity before you call it “done.”
• Keep environments and workspaces intentional: dev/test/prod separation and controlled promotion beats “publish over it.”
• Document the operational knobs: data source settings, gateway cluster, and credential location should be easy for the next person to find.
• Security isn’t optional: gateway configuration, data source permissions, and workspace roles all combine into the real access model.

Looking Forward

If you want cloud-scale sharing, build the boring foundation first—gateway ops, credential ownership, and a refresh plan you can actually support.

Episode Transcript

0:28 good morning everyone and welcome back to the explicit measures podcast with Tommy Seth and Mike good morning gentlemen happy August 29th which is a Tuesday so happy Tuesday to you you excellent excellent good morning everyone not a whole lot in the power bi space at this point just for everyone to recognize there’s a this is a pre-recorded episode so we pre-recorded this one I think it’s I feel like it’s it’s worthwhile for us to at least note for people who are trying to show up on time on the day of they’re like where are

0:59 on the day of they’re like where are they what’s going on so why aren’t they responding to my hilarity in the comments yes is is the the prompting question if we we don’t make the little announcement but for all those who listen to us on anything other podcast channels you may think this is the most boring part of the show just get on it get on with it we will get on with it we’re not commenting I’m just yelling at you into The Ether yes exactly

1:34 speaking of ether we have a a question we’re going to take a mailbag question and this is more of a introductory question I think this is more one of a fundamental one that that newer people will encounter when they start thinking about power bi but we have a question that came in through the mailbag we will talk through this question question Seth you want to give us the really good reader announcer voice for this question the announcer voice it’s always good and Gravelly in the morning [Music] [Music] thank you for providing so much helpful

2:04 thank you for providing so much helpful power bi information my question how can I migrate my power bi setup from a standalone laptop to a Cloud Server this means the reports pbix files user security and most importantly the data connections I understand the pbix files can be copied to the new server and opened but how do I re-establish data connections several of which are for cloud-based apps like netsuite and user Security will I get prompted for these when I reopen the pbix file on the Cloud

2:35 when I reopen the pbix file on the Cloud Server instance your guidance would be appreciated thank you so I think I think this is a very introductory question I think when I was when I was beginning to work with power bi this was something I had to explain to a lot of people around the idea of idea of Power bi has this ability to do this Cloud stuff like it gets and it’s where does the file go how does security work what is what do things look like there A lot of times I think when I my experience was when I started

3:06 when I my experience was when I started building things out of power bi I use a lot of excel a lot of excel was my initial source for information and I had to move my my main workload from my local machine into something like a SharePoint or some cloud drive that could go connect to those files and get access to those to those since then I don’t really do a whole lot more Excel work or at least trying to avoid that as much as possible when working with data models but I think this is a great question any

3:36 I think this is a great question any points in this that stuck out to You Tommy or Seth I like the next week and then let’s keep thing that’s always something fun I think think at first I was thinking about this like this doesn’t apply at all especially where we’re at now when we were going through the topics but more thought about this on just kind thought about this on just the trend if I were to look back five of the trend if I were to look back five years what was I focusing on in my to your point yeah and how much is just being done now on a doesn’t have to be on a major PC it

4:08 on a doesn’t have to be on a major PC it doesn’t like where does everything actually live it’s becoming a more and more important question question so it’s interesting that netsuite comes up here up here it is a cloud-based Source or it could be it doesn’t have to be netspeed could be an on-prem operational system and this is this is a system that would your your team of people will create data generate orders work inside the system in order to make the business run you’re collecting

4:38 the business run you’re collecting information about your your customers in there likely it’s your Enterprise Reporting System I guess would you guys call it the Erp is that how you’re interpreting netsuite isn’t that sweet more of a financial system system I don’t know I thought it was more just general run the business thing I guess it could also capture mean I guess it could also capture financials I have some companies right now that we’re partnering with to help build or they’re deploying netsuite and we’re

5:09 they’re deploying netsuite and we’re connecting power bi to the netsuite apis so I do know that it comes in two flavors there’s like an on-prem flavor and there’s like the cloud version

5:16 and there’s like the cloud version flavor of it which again I think most software companies sap Oracle that’s sweet like all these different companies that now have multiple offerings cloud or on-prem yeah you’re right it’s an Erp it’s just looking it up one of the things that struck me so I think I think we’re going to answer this hopefully in the right way but I almost it almost strikes me on whether or not he’s talking about here she’s talking about power bi report server

5:47 about power bi report server okay so I I had Vibes of that yes it felt like Vibes but I wouldn’t I wouldn’t necessarily associate a report server as a Cloud Server no but it could be interpreted as there’s a like I have the pbix files on my local machine and I’m putting them on another machine literally the folder experience of hey we have report server I’m going to physically move those files over there there and set them up that way

6:21 so that that’s that’s that was yeah those were I got those vibes as well from this question what do you guys think how would you what would be your answer to someone who’s moving from I’m developing on my laptop to now I’m moving to report server server to report server any any different any different or additional guidance I don’t think it would change too much between that and rbi. com very similar well except that you’re three months behind if you’re on The Cutting Edge of everything you’re doing and you’re having to migrated those reports

6:51 reports while I agree with you Tommy on the on the comment of the report server typically is you’re right three to six months behind what’s happening in powerbit. com so you don’t have the latest features there’s also some features you’re never going to get I don’t think you’re ever gonna get any of the AI based features on report server or things that are needed need to use cloud resources to be able to do something and the only other thing is since you’re not really publishing through the workspace it’s just I still like there’s obviously a lot we don’t know in terms

7:22 obviously a lot we don’t know in terms of the audience too I can only talk about my own examples of dealing with people who are on Prem and just as really access it’s not it’s access the data and there’s access to sharing those are the two things I would be focusing on okay I like that like that how do how do you how do you explain this conversation like what’s your I this conversation like what’s your obviously we’re pushing them to go mean obviously we’re pushing them to go to powerba. com yeah that would be a record our recommendation is yes you couldn’t use power AI report server yeah it’s just very limited and

7:52 server yeah it’s just very limited and just rolls out features much much slower than rba. com yeah yeah you’re exactly the answers you can but why yeah and again it might not be his choice have to be the playground like the totally he’s living in but if you’re going again from netsuke but yeah man I’ll be the cat like it’s been so long since I’ve worked with report server I I couldn’t even tell you right like it’s a save as experience as opposed to publishing isn’t it and yeah it’s very reminiscent

8:24 isn’t it and yeah it’s very reminiscent of reconnecting connections and the VM is going to have to or wherever you’re installing like the only way you get into the cloud is if you’re doing that on a VM but because it’s it’s for your local like on-premises report server because you don’t want to be in the cloud the cloud which is why this back the back and forth of the question makes like I don’t know but either way like like I’ll I’ll be the guy in the room that says like man I forget oh yeah but at the same time like

8:55 forget oh yeah but at the same time like it should be fairly straightforward it’s just you’re probably gonna run into more problems with the connections right I don’t know if those could like easily go along along and because it’s on a machine right like there’s a very easy experience in the power bi service experience yeah if it’s especially if it’s cloud-based yes a lot of a lot of a lot of the connections just automatically resolve themselves right like if you had a connection to netspeed on your pbix when you deploy it it’s the

9:26 on your pbix when you deploy it it’s the same connection it’s like logging into Salesforce you just refresh your creds and it’s good to go there’s nothing else you need to do which is the Fantastic part about using Cloud sources is you don’t have to muck around with re the the the actual data connections again however once you get used to using the the Enterprise Gateway which would be how you would connect two sources that require require that additional connection string so typically that’s on premises although there are a few I think that require a

9:57 there are a few I think that require a gateway gateway but that would be a prerequisite to pushing and reconnecting your power bi report to use standardized connections so so my personal opinion is we just move away from Power bi report server and start talking about like how do you go from go from yeah your your local experience to the cloud service so I think there’s a couple things I’d like to touch on just very briefly on reports or before we leave right so if we think

10:28 before we leave right so if we think about report server it’s basically mimicking the power bi. com experience

10:32 mimicking the power bi. com experience internal to your firewall so depending on your organization like what you have set up set up your company typically has like an IP a firewall a network that you can connect into securely and depending on what company you are you have to come on-prem go there that’s when you can log in or in other companies they’ve actually added some access that let you punch holes or or have secured connections into your company’s environment using VMS or having like a firewall so basically that means your

11:04 firewall so basically that means your your environment has a full isolation from everything in the outside world the report server lives inside that bubble so anyone accessing reports inside your company firewall you would the same experience it’s very similar to what poverty. com is doing you you make a file you then physically move the pbix file into the report server the report server then reads that file it requires you to have some credentials added to that machine right so you’re when you publish that file it needs you to here is the

11:36 file it needs you to here is the settings of that file you enter your credentials username and password to the different data sources each data source or each table essentially in power query each table you produce could have a different data source you could be loading data from a different connection string I forget that experiences like dude like is it still separating out the data set from the report or is that all within like a pain that you’re you’re viewing the report again I’ll be honest with you Seth no so I don’t remember the report server there’s technically no public I just know that yeah there’s no publish but I

12:07 know that yeah there’s no publish but I do know there’s a I do know there’s credentials in there that you have to like because because the PBX file doesn’t come with the credentials I know there’s a credential setup I think there’s a file settings that this is where Greg baldini would be great on this because he knows all the things and remembers everything way better than I do but I believe there’s all the report server again exactly exactly let’s not say we did really the whole setup is when you go to save it or publish it you basically click on Save and choose the folder or the location in the service

12:37 folder or the location in the service yes and it goes in there yes correct there and it’s live basically so so I think one of the fundamental things that I wanted to break out is this misconception that well not misconception there there is a lot going on and jumbled together in a pbix file and now pbip right we get more true more access to the yes components within the things but ultimately when you think when people are new users are thinking about that experience it’s not

13:07 thinking about that experience it’s not just a reporting tool okay right it’s an end-to-end experience was an end-to-end experience before fabric even came up power power query the first part right is your connections and your Transformations you’re saying I want to connect to this data and if you whether you remember it or not right you have to set up your data your Source credentials like to connect to that data yes RBI does it just holds it retains that so the next time you connect to it you

13:37 the next time you connect to it you don’t have to worry about it and people forget that oh yeah I had to set that up but that’s your connections and Transformations and when you click like save and load right you’re pushing your data into a tabular model it’s a completely different component yes that compresses the memory right and that’s what we’re working off of when we are building measures Dax right using Dax power queries m tabular models is Dax and then you have the rewarding front-ended interface so

14:07 the rewarding front-ended interface so we have this like package of things that when you publish to the service service separate in the in the way that they would right like you have a data set you have a report so the the connection strings that are made are made are instantly either going to work and you just need to refresh the credentials on the data set or you would need to install a Gateway ideally not a personal running off your local computer right

14:37 running off your local computer right you would want an Enterprise Gateway or whatever they’re calling it these days on a VM right somewhere where other people can access it other people can utilize it and then you would set up the credentials on the Gateway and on that data set for the report correct connect to the Gateway so you you don’t that’s the where the credentials are stored other people can use it you can share that Gateway connection with other other people people so it’s like this separation of different things across the board that I think people need to understand like

15:08 think people need to understand like when they’re publishing out into the service these are the things that are happening the the other point in here that I would make is if it sounds like this is a local experience like all these my reports and now I want to like share potentially yes because they bring up the the fact that like all my data connections are to my local machine Etc one of the best things you can do right now right is fine for if if these are files that are local to you put them

15:39 are files that are local to you put them on a shared file location SharePoint whatever it’s a great recommendation and within there the the trick is you have

15:47 within there the the trick is you have to go into properties and copy the path of wherever that SharePoint folder is from the Excel file to get to get the web URL right so when you’re actually reconnecting to those files it’s via the web and not via Excel because it’s going to take your local machine connection path and the challenge there being if anybody else needs to like dig in or fix the report at some point in time they can’t right because those files are going to be stuck locally on your

16:17 going to be stuck locally on your machine so that’s like the only thing I would say as far as like if you as you push this into the a cloud space to share it right there’s likely going to be think about think about others right like think about others that are going to interact or need to fix a report because you may not do may not to may not be able to may not be able to able to I would say the whole sharing Topic in general is quite a large conversation about about what you can do with sharing again to your point there Seth there’s

16:48 again to your point there Seth there’s as we’re thinking about things that I’ve been building locally I think most people interpret the data set and the report all one thing all one object because it’s literally all inside the PBX file I think when we start talking about teams working with teams sharing content across teams there’s a lot more design or system design that occurs at how do we want to share and distribute content because once you get to powerba. com powerba. com there’s almost

17:18 powerba. com powerba. com there’s almost this Rat’s Nest of anything can connect to anything like and what by that is I can make a data set separate than a report we call it a thin report so we’d have the data set and the thin report so now I have two files to manage where the data lives and I would refresh the data and I have a report definition that’s more along the lines of just the reporting elements maybe a little bit of of Dax measurements so one how do you manage that who needs access to it are are my external users or the people using and consuming this are they only

17:49 using and consuming this are they only looking at the report side or do they need to build their own reports on the data set that changes those those answers to those questions change how you structure the information do you really need a strong process around Dev test prod do you need people is that is that part of your environment it may not be initially because you don’t know you’re not aware of it but is that something you need to plan for and then there’s this concept of who’s building all the reports does all of the information come from a central team team or some of the information come from a

18:19 or some of the information come from a central team and a lot of the information is being generated on the the consumer or the user side because that also changes your pattern do I now have a workspace for just the data set and a workspace for the thin report eat at any rate the workspace really becomes your mechanism your your boundary for how you share and what content people can access or not access and I really do want to emphasize the workspace inside powerbit. com is really focusing on

18:49 powerbit. com is really focusing on people who build things together they’re not necessarily consumers of that content the consumers of content should be focusing more on apps that’s where you should be putting that information I think the biggest thing too is whether he’s moving the report server or they’re moving the cloud it’s it’s the long-term thinking too all the things you’re talking about right once you go from either a report server or to cloud or fabric those three things it’s something that you do not want to just start

19:19 that you do not want to just start building in a vacuum because regardless of where he’s going with this there’s probably a lot of migration steps and I’m sorry to say yeah all those connection strings are going to have to be redone if you’re converting it but I I to me it’s like the long term thinking if they are going to the report server for the long haul or is that some intermediary step because obviously it’s there’s a full transition that you want me to think about from access but also just like you said if we’re gonna

19:50 just like you said if we’re gonna consume reports in a certain way with apps yep well we can’t do that in the report server and then if we’re gonna put things in somewhere in the cloud-based location well if not can I even access that from this new location so just trying to think of where do where are we going to be a year from now and like what’s the game plan so it sounds like they’re pretty they’re a little bit behind in terms of from the technology point of view but in the last three years I’ve never I’m not having conversations around like I

20:21 not having conversations around like I had conversations three years ago about report server people were very interested in that it’s almost it threw me when I was like oh crap I just had no thought right your daughter’s like I haven’t touched it in forever and and I think my recommendation on this would be very much try not to or try to convince your organization or talk to people who already do a lot of these deployments of things go get their ins have them review your architecture what you’re trying to plan and deploy for like sharing and content

20:51 and deploy for like sharing and content because again the whole sharing conversation just gets really complicated because we have apps we have data sets we have reports you can even now share tables of data through like a lake house so now you can have a

21:03 lake house so now you can have a read-only access to a lake house now I believe that was just announced in the Microsoft blog so if you’re doing fabric level things or you’re generating tables of data so if you think about these different thresholds of what you gain access to access to you could have access to Raw tables roomed data sets with relationships and measures built into them the reports that are cleaned groomed insight-based information or bundle all those things together into Excel documents PDFs all you can bundle it now into an application a data app and an app from

21:34 application a data app and an app from Microsoft Microsoft so all of those different levels of experience give you different capabilities and it’s hard again this is why Microsoft’s just been pumping out features and I’m like great we have options but now the hard part is which options should I be using what should we be focusing on that becomes I think more difficult for end users yeah I’m going to dial into a couple things of like if I were if I were this individual you’re already to a state where you have a power bi report

22:05 you have a power bi report start with one figure out what the steps are and and like make sure to do some core things one when you’re in power bi service service which you’ll need a pro license create a shared workspace not not your own you’ll have my workspace go to workspace publish there what you’ll see your two components one is the report one is the data set and the Ellipsis go to settings and then you’ll be able to like look at the data sources that’s a great point and and that’s where you’re going to find the

22:35 that’s where you’re going to find the connection information because you’re going to need to refresh the credentials or you’ll understand that oh this this data source requires a Gateway at which point you got to do some leg work probably with an I. T person to install a Gateway somewhere but it’s a very simple experience and then whoever the owner of the Gateway is if they make that you that’s fine but whoever the owner of the Gateway is would need to create the same connection that you had done in in your power bi desktop it’s going to be whatever the credentials are and that’s

23:06 whatever the credentials are and that’s where this can be a higher level credit probably shouldn’t be somebody’s personal credentials yes and then they can share that connection string with you so you’d be using a different set of credentials and anybody using the report would be using that set of credentials now the thing to keep in mind here is you there was a question about user security and that’s a component that you’re going to build in the pbix file under members there’s role level security right so you create members you define what those members

23:37 members you define what those members can see from the model and roles that they would have and the data will automatically filter within that model by you setting up the the structure by which they’re going to have a relationship and typically it’s an email address or something a relationship to the other data in the model when you deploy that there isn’t anything else you need to do it’s just the matter like understanding that when people are interacting with the report the report is automatically

24:07 the report the report is automatically filtered down to what that individual within the data bundle could see so are there some things you need to be cognizant over there to ensure that that’s working appropriately should you test it absolutely but that inherently is part of a tabular model you can build that security within the report itself without having to mess around with externally trying to like slice and dice the report so once we’ve got all of that set up the connections are set to go in the power bi front end you basically

24:38 the power bi front end you basically just share that report via an app is what we suggest a lot of times because you can roll up a lot of reports into a singular app and point to audiences it just makes the whole experience a lot easier otherwise you can share that report singly to individuals or users within the organization I’m listening to what you’re saying and I’m trying to distill this down into like my my quick my hit list of things to research or things to read up on so that you’re comfortable with

25:08 so that you’re comfortable with this experience I I one thing I think is pro license right know what that is and know how to go get one of those in your organization I think the second concept is don’t use my workspace learn how to build a workspace in general and assign users into that and again my my general guidance around workspaces are there should be one admin there should be one or two admins or and or members everyone who’s working together again we think of workspaces as a collaboration

25:39 think of workspaces as a collaboration area area add everyone else as a contributor so start with the lowest amount of permissions that people need to have to get into the workspace that would be modifying or need to manage the reports exactly not yeah not the end users reading them yep so us learn how to do that right that’s another thing you haven’t done when you’re working on your desktop on the on your laptop right that’s that’s a new experience that you’re gonna have right I think the I think the the second part here and this is maybe where I differed a little bit Seth from what you

26:10 differed a little bit Seth from what you you spoke about is is move your data to a cloud Source right if you have if you’re referencing anything locally like

26:17 you’re referencing anything locally like an Excel file something that’s local on your laptop those things can’t get connected directly to this the cloud without a lot of extra effort so if you are using Excel files if you’re using CSV files Json stuff if there are things that you are using locally in your machine you need to move them somewhere where powerbi. com can easily access them most companies if they’re already in the cloud if you’re thinking about using powerba. com are thinking about using SharePoint as well or have some version of SharePoint already attached to users inside the cloud so my recommendation

26:48 inside the cloud so my recommendation this can vary would be is put all your flat files the files you’re using locally move them to a cloud source as well so that way if you’re connecting to netsuite which is a cloud provider and any of these other ancillary data points or files those are all being connected directly to another Cloud source so that that solves the whole Gateway issue so you don’t need the Gateway so that would be my my second word of advice is move your data somewhere else before you move off on the Gateway and I agree with that right we talked about yeah move off your local

27:18 we talked about yeah move off your local files but if you’re stuck with a Gateway on you need to understand domains right the data source is in a specific domain right like on premises or on a virtual testing that requires special connections and typically like you wherever that Gateway is installed it needs to be in that same domain in order for it to work yes because if you like sources you can’t to Mike’s point that you can’t modify or adjust it’s yes it’s like a SQL Server yeah I’ve got a server on parameters behind our firewall we

27:48 on parameters behind our firewall we can’t punch a hole like so so what do you do like so and so my next word of advice would be if you can’t move those files to the cloud then learn more about gateways understand what it is there’s actually some really good documentation that’s inside Microsoft documentation talks about what is a gateway when what I want to use it gives you some interesting infographics that help you with that so I would recommend learn about that and then I think you made another really great Point here Seth was in the context of who is accessing the reports in the app

28:18 accessing the reports in the app when you log into things every time you log into powerba. com your email address is associated to you and that email address or information about you that person can be passed directly into the data set data set the question here is does each person who looks at the report do they need to see different data if the answer is yes go learn about row level security that’s another thing you’ll need to add to the files the power bi files to help you filter out data so Tommy can see the

28:48 filter out data so Tommy can see the North America region of data but Mike can see South America right so we’re different sales teams right we’re seeing different things the report look and feel is the same but the data is being represented differently that’s when you use parallel security so study up on role security and then the last important part I would say is learning more about apps apps were very simple initially click a button apps published add people done move on but now with this whole thing called app audiences I think you need to do a little bit more homework around okay what is an app what

29:20 homework around okay what is an app what is an audience of the app and what is actually happening between like what can I hide and show and basically the audience is a way of saying I’m gonna publish the app and hide and show various elements inside that app based on the users that are accessing the app so I think if you get those bullet points down that would be my hit list of things you need to learn or go play with go to powerbay. com make a workspace build these things publish some stuff there update the credentials you’ll figure that out as you go getting in there

29:50 you go getting in there it won’t refresh power bi. com tries to prompt you a bit of that direction so all that being said I think that’s a good learning list of what you would need to do to get started going from I’m developing locally on my computer and I’m now trying to publish those things into private. com anything else you guys would add for that list that list synopsis Mike that’s perfect so many things it’s been a while since I started at the beginning I think

30:20 since I started at the beginning I think this is something that we as experts miss a lot of the time there’s this whole concept of like getting people up to where we are that we we forget I assume a lot of things are already just known known and sometimes that’s just not always true because I think this is why this is a great question and going back and rethinking the basics well this is going to be a bit of a shorter episode we thank you very much we appreciate your time listening to us and talking to us on the podcast actually not talking just listening thank you for your ears we appreciate your time if you like this one or if you

30:52 your time if you like this one or if you had someone else who’s brand new going from just starting on power bi or if someone who’s just starting out this is a great conversation and or hit list of things you should learn about getting into the power b. com space see if that works how that that learning curve would work for you Tommy where else can you find the podcast you can find it anywhere it’s available on Apple Spotify make sure to subscribe and leave it rain helps us out a ton if you have a topic a question or an idea that you want us to talk about you can go ahead and go to powerbi. tip

31:23 you can go ahead and go to powerbi. tip slash the podcast and finally join us live every Tuesday and Thursday on the power bi tips channels for live episodes excellent we’ll see you around on the interwebs

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