Personal workspaces in Power BI are intended as private, user-specific environments. They are designed for individual development and testing, not for collaboration, production, or long-term data storage. Using personal workspaces beyond their intended purpose can lead to governance, access, and security issues. Limited feature availability compared to Power BI Web Service.
Intended Use: Development and Testing Only
- Personal Workspaces should be used strictly for development, experimentation, and testing of Power BI content.
- They are not meant to serve as environments for collaboration, production, or organizational reporting.
Do Not Share or Publish Production Content
- Never share or publish reports intended for business users or official reporting from a Personal Workspace.
- These workspaces are not designed to support collaborative workflows or multi-user access.
- Do not use Personal Workspaces to distribute shared content across teams or departments.
Not a Repository for Organizational Data
- Personal Workspaces will never serve as a primary repository for Enterprise reports or datasets.
- Data and reports stored in these spaces are not visible to or maintained by the broader organization.
Content Lifecycle Risk
- Any content in a Personal Workspace is tied to the user’s account.
- If the user leaves the organization or loses access, all associated reports, datasets, and dashboards may be permanently lost.
- This makes Personal Workspaces unsuitable for content with a long-term or shared lifecycle.
Limited Functionality
- Some Power BI features are not available or are restricted in Personal Workspaces. This includes automated deployments, usage metrics, and advanced sharing controls.
Security and Permission Risks
- Sharing content from a Personal Workspace requires managing permissions at the item level.
- This process is cumbersome, error-prone, and increases the risk of unauthorized access.
Recommended Practice
If you are working on content intended for sharing, business use, or long-term deployment: request a dedicated Power BI workspace by emailing data-visualization@osu.edu.
- Please include: Name.# or email addresses of users who should have administrator permissions
- (Optional) Any Active Directory groups that should be added. The specific roles each group or user should have.