[bromcom] PowerBI - Making sure I get the structure right!

[CyBeRkId2002]

Afternoon all,

 

I have been trying to get some PowerBI reports setup out of our new Bromcom setup and things are going pretty well, but I did want to ask the experts if my plan of how to structure the data is correct before I get too far in!

 

At this point in time I am looking at three particular areas (reports?) for three distinct groups of users (yes, I realise I have missed assessment and big picture SLT stuff but will add these in as necessary):

 

• Behaviour - for our pastoral team to go right from big picture, down to individual student level
  
• Attendance - For our attendance officer
  
• Staff Absence - For our staffing manager to potentially replace a third party piece of software we currently use
  
• 
  

 

My plan is to have three different PowerBI reports / files, one for each of these, either with independent data stores or with a shared data store. I can then share the reports from the seperate files with the relevant users. I believe my other options would be to create dashboards from my reports and share those, but as I am creating multiple pages for each of these groups I think reports works best for my use-case.

 

Also, am I right in thinking I can purchase a single PowerBI file for each of these report users, and one for myself as creator and we are covered?

 

Thanks in advance,

Michael

[CyBeRkId2002]

oh, and finally, does Bromcom allow me the ability to share different reports with different users? Pretty sure this was mentioned at the sales demo's but haven't seen a way to do it and am assuming you can only enter one set of credentials in Bromcom and the rest has to be accessed via PowerBI web interface.

[bfelton]

I would probably go for a single dataset and create separate reports for each type of user, this will allow you to cross-reference the different areas of data such as behaviour and attendance.

[CyBeRkId2002]

That makes sense! Trying to get my head around how this works. Am I right in thinking:

 

I create a file in PowerBI desktop with the appropriate datasets and no reports (Dataset.pbix, for example).

Sync the above to PowerBI web

Create a new PowerBI desktop file, choose PowerBI as my source and select the above dataset.

If any changes to datasets need to be made, I need to load the dataset.pbix (or can this be done in the web interface?

 

This sounds like best practice for getting data out, but fiddly to setup and maintain.

[bfelton]

I have created the dataset and reports in the desktop version and then I publish to the online version whenever I make a change. My desktop files are my master copies.

[CyBeRkId2002]

Can you create more than one report per pbix file? That is what I am struggling with.

[djrscally]

Can you create more than one report per pbix file? That is what I am struggling with.

 

No, but you can combine as much information from as many different sources as you like into one report (I.E. one .pbix file) if that's what you want to do.

[RootsSchImp]

Each pbix file is a report with a dataset behind it.

 

3 options for managing the permissions:

 

1 (free, but more hassle for you)

Create 3 separate free bi accounts (attd officer, beh officer, staffabs officer)

Publish your three reports to their respective bi accounts and configure each to schedule refresh in each.

In Bromcom Analysis, Power Bi Configuration choose 'indivdual accounts'.

Now when your three users go to power bi viewer in Bromcom they'll see their report, provided they're logged into their app.poerbi. account in the background.

Drawback here is it's obvs very difficult to scale beyond a couple of users with their own dash.

2 More expensive, more control.

Get all your bi users pro accounts (cost varies but it's around 2-3 quid a month per user). You can then upload and manage reports in one place and share them with the users you want access. Note sharer and sharee both need a pro account.

3 free with workarounds.

Publish all dashes that any bi user can view (probs the pupil data ones ) to a free account, configure Bromcom to use shared account and put that ac details in. Restrict access to mis users by hiding the power bi viewer for everyone except those authorised to see the pupil data.

Have a separate bi account for staff/HR and view that outside the MIS (you can still schedule its refresh so it stays up-to-date )

 

Good luck

 

Ed

[bfelton]

You could also have one pbix with one report, make the landing page a report page with buttons for each area, this can then lead them to the relevant areas of data for the different members of staff. It depends on whether or not you are happy for the each member of staff to have access to the different areas of data, the argument would be that as they get used to the system the behaviour person might want to bring the attendance data into their analysis or vice versa.

[bobsmith]

If you aren't cross linking areas then you aren't really using powerBI to it's potential. Normally the reports you get within your MIS will do all the straightforward analyses.

 

That said the beauty of powerBI is adding new features when you think of them. As long as you've got a good data model and relationships setup it's really easy.

[CyBeRkId2002]

Cheers all.

 

Just about getting to grips with it. Sorted out licensing. Got my data models sorted (I have gone down the route of having a single dataset) and have created reports for:

 

Form Tutors - dashboard with behaviour summary, attendance % (with comparisons with 7 and 30 days ago) and a few other bits)

Pastoral Team - Behaviour Summaries by Form, Class, Students etc. based on their requirements

Attendance Officer - similar to form tutors but for whole school with breakdowns by key fields

 

I have just gone to share the Form Tutor report with a generic 'Form Tutor' BI account I was going to share in Bromcom but it seems that my plan to share a single report page as a tile pinned to a dashboard is not going to work as it also shares the entire report (which has data they should not have access to). Is this everyone else's understanding on how BI should work? I am guessing I will need to duplicate the report in BI web, remove the pages I don't want and share that report. Not ideal but works I suppose.

[CyBeRkId2002]

Oh, and cheers Ed for the reply to my post on your blog. definitely pointed me in the right direction!

[hiphopamus]

Looks like this might be useful...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/business-applications-release-notes/April19/business-intelligence/power-bi-service/shared-certified-datasets

[bfelton]

Looks like this might be useful...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/business-applications-release-notes/April19/business-intelligence/power-bi-service/shared-certified-datasets

 

It would appear that my phone still links to my account from my old SIMS support days.. Further to the feature I mentioned above there are some promising developments in the app navigation coming in May too! looks like a worthwhile upgrade..