A new version of the Microsoft whitepaper “Planning a Power BI Enterprise Deployment” is now available. Once again, Melissa Coates (b|t) and Chris Webb (b|t) are the authors. I was lucky enough to be the tech editor again on this version, so I’m excited to see the new information be released to the public.
There were quite a few updates this time. Here are some of the highlights:
- Section 3, “Power BI Architectural Choices”, has updated information on dataflows and Power BI Premium. It also includes a nice section clarifying the options available for embedding Power BI content.
- Section 4, “Power BI Licensing and User Management”, has been updating to include information on self-service purchasing.
- Section 5, “Power BI Source Data Considerations” now includes information on dataflows.
- Section 6, “Power BI Dataset Storage Options” now contains information about Automatic Page Refresh and large models.
- Section 7, “Power BI Data Refresh and Data Gateway” now mentions the Power Platform Admin Center. It also discusses dataflow refreshes in addition to dataset refreshes. And more information has been added regarding the use of gateway clusters for load balancing and high availability.
- Section 8, “Power BI Dataset and Report Development Considerations” contains new information on shared datasets and .pbids (Power BI Data Source) files. It also has a new section providing guidance on information design and accessibility. And it provides updated information on the use of custom visuals.
- Section 9, “Power BI Collaboration, Sharing and Distribution”, has been updated to reflect the new workspace experience. It also discusses shared and certified datasets and the new deployment pipelines. It also contains a nice decision tree to help you determine whether to use apps, workspaces, or sharing.
- Section 10, “Power BI Administration”, has new recommendations for tenant settings. It also discusses protection metrics, custom help menus, custom branding as well as providing new information on managing workspaces and dataflows. And it discusses the new activity log and related PowerShell modules.
- Section 11, “Power BI Security and Data Protection”, now discusses the roles in the new workspace experience as well as sensitivity labels and Microsoft Information Protection.
- An updated list of deprecated items can be found in section 12, “Power BI Deprecated Items”.
- Section 13, “Support, Learning, and Third-Party Tools” contains a great list of helpful resources for the Power BI practitioner.
I hope you’ll take a glance through the updated whitepaper and catch up on all the new information. Happy reading!
