Testing RLS in Desktop in Power BI - Dashboard Guide

Dashboard Mode - Testing RLS in Desktop

Goal

Understand how Row-Level Security (RLS) works in Power BI Desktop by testing user-specific data access.

Sample Data

OrderID	Region	Salesperson	SalesAmount
1001	North	Alice	500
1002	South	Bob	300
1003	East	Charlie	400
1004	North	Alice	700
1005	South	Bob	200
1006	East	Charlie	600

Dashboard Components

• KPI Card: Total Sales
  Formula: Total Sales = SUM(Sales[SalesAmount])
  Result: 2700
• Table Visual: Sales by Salesperson
  Columns: Salesperson, SalesAmount (SUM)
  Shows sales grouped by salesperson.
• Table Visual: Sales by Region
  Columns: Region, SalesAmount (SUM)
  Shows sales grouped by region.
• RLS Role: SalespersonRole
  Filter: [Salesperson] = USERPRINCIPALNAME()
  This restricts data to only the logged-in salesperson's rows.

Dashboard Layout

+----------------------+----------------------+
|      Total Sales     |  Sales by Salesperson |
|       (KPI Card)     |      (Table)         |
+----------------------+----------------------+
|        Sales by Region (Table)               |
+----------------------------------------------+

Interactivity

The RLS role filters all visuals automatically based on the logged-in user. When testing in Power BI Desktop, use the View As feature to simulate different salespersons. For example, selecting 'Alice' will show only her sales in all visuals.

Self Check

If you use the View As feature to test the RLS role for 'Bob', which salespersons' data will appear in the dashboard?

Answer: Only rows where Salesperson = 'Bob' will appear in all visuals.

Key Result

Dashboard demonstrating Row-Level Security in Power BI Desktop filtering sales data by salesperson.