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Power BI Governance & Modernisation

Turn a growing Power BI environment into a trusted analytics platform

Datazeb helps organisations improve existing Power BI environments that have become difficult to manage, maintain, or trust.

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Illustrative interface

Common signs the Power BI environment needs attention

  • Different reports show different numbers for the same KPI
  • Many datasets contain overlapping business logic
  • Reports are slow or refresh unreliably
  • Teams publish directly into shared workspaces without clear standards
  • Row-level security is inconsistent or difficult to maintain
  • No one owns key semantic models or data sources
  • Too many reports exist and users do not know which one to trust
  • Manual Excel steps still sit behind supposedly automated dashboards

What Datazeb can deliver

  1. Power BI Environment Review

    Assess workspaces, reports, semantic models, gateways, refresh, security, ownership, usage, and technical debt.

  2. Governance Framework

    Define practical rules for publishing, ownership, naming, access, certification, support, and change management.

  3. Semantic Model Consolidation

    Reduce duplicated datasets and create reusable, governed models for common business areas.

  4. Performance Optimisation

    Improve DAX, Power Query, model design, report interactions, refresh patterns, and data architecture.

  5. Workspace & Access Design

    Structure workspaces, roles, deployment paths, and row-level security around the organisation's operating model.

  6. Refresh & Gateway Reliability

    Review gateway architecture, source connections, credentials, refresh scheduling, and failure monitoring.

  7. Report Rationalisation

    Identify duplicates, outdated reports, overlapping content, and opportunities to simplify the reporting estate.

  8. Modernisation Roadmap

    Create a prioritised plan for architecture, governance, migration, Fabric readiness, support, and future BI growth.

Governance areas

What a governed Power BI environment controls

  • Workspaces

    • Domain-based structure
    • Group-based roles
    • Naming and archiving rules

  • Semantic models

    • Shared, certified models
    • Documented measures
    • Size and refresh tuning

  • Security and RLS

    • Row-level security tested by role
    • Build and export permissions
    • Sharing settings reviewed

  • Deployment

    • Development, test and production
    • Version-controlled source files
    • Scheduled releases

  • Monitoring

    • Refresh failure alerts
    • Usage and capacity review
    • Gateway health

  • Ownership

    • Named owner per model and workspace
    • Request and support route
    • Licence review

From scattered reports to a governed BI platform

Modernisation should remove unnecessary complexity while preserving useful reporting. The goal is a smaller number of trusted models, clearer ownership, predictable deployment, and a supportable operating model.

  1. 01Current Estate
  2. 02Assess & Rationalise
  3. 03Shared Models
  4. 04Governed Delivery
  5. 05Trusted BI

In detail

Explore the detail

Power BI environment assessment

Start with evidence, not assumptions

A structured review can cover: The outcome should be a prioritised improvement plan rather than a generic governance document.

  • Workspace structure
  • Report inventory
  • Semantic models / datasets
  • Data sources
  • Refresh schedules
  • Gateways
  • Credentials
  • Security and RLS
  • Usage patterns
  • Performance issues
  • Manual dependencies
  • Ownership and support process
Semantic model strategy

Reduce duplicated business logic

A mature BI environment should avoid rebuilding the same customer, product, finance, sales, or date logic in every report. The objective is to create trusted reusable models without forcing every business question into one oversized dataset.

  • Shared semantic models
  • Consistent KPI calculations
  • Common dimensions
  • Certified / endorsed datasets where appropriate
  • Reusable measures
  • Clear ownership
  • Version and change control
KPI consistency

One KPI should mean one thing

Governance becomes useful when it prevents different departments from publishing different answers to the same management question.

  • Agreed business definition
  • Calculation logic
  • Authoritative source
  • Metric owner
  • Refresh frequency
  • Historical restatement rule where needed
  • Approved filters / exclusions

Workspace and content architecture

Datazeb can help design a practical workspace structure around:

  • Business domains
  • Development / test / production separation
  • Central models
  • Department reporting
  • App distribution
  • Ownership and support
  • Deployment responsibilities

Security and row-level access

Security should be designed around actual business access requirements rather than using separate copies of reports for every audience.

  • Role-based access
  • Row-level security
  • Region / entity / department access
  • App audiences where appropriate
  • Workspace permissions
  • Restricted sensitive reporting
Performance optimisation

Slow Power BI is often an architecture problem, not a visual problem

Datazeb can review: Optimisation should focus on the full data path rather than only changing visuals.

  • Star-schema design
  • Cardinality
  • DAX measures
  • Power Query transformations
  • Query folding
  • Import vs DirectQuery choices
  • Model size
  • Visual interaction load
  • Source-system performance

Refresh and gateway reliability

A dashboard that refreshes unpredictably is not a trusted business system, regardless of how good the design looks.

  • Gateway architecture
  • Refresh scheduling
  • Credential ownership
  • Source timeouts
  • Incremental refresh where appropriate
  • Failure notifications
  • Dependency sequencing
  • Refresh monitoring
Report rationalisation

Not every report needs to survive

Datazeb can help classify reports into: Rationalisation reduces confusion and support effort while making the trusted reporting path clearer to users.

  • Business-critical
  • Useful but overlapping
  • Outdated
  • Duplicate
  • Low usage
  • Candidate for consolidation
  • Candidate for retirement

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Do we need to rebuild all our Power BI reports?

Usually not. A review can identify what should be retained, optimised, consolidated, or retired. Modernisation should preserve useful work where practical.

Can you fix slow Power BI reports?

Yes. Datazeb can review model design, DAX, Power Query, source queries, refresh architecture, and report interactions to identify performance bottlenecks.

Can you help with governance without creating too much bureaucracy?

Yes. The governance model should be proportionate to the organisation's size, risk, team structure, and BI maturity.

Can you improve row-level security and workspace access?

Yes. Datazeb can review and redesign access models around approved business requirements.

Can you take over an existing Power BI environment?

Yes. Datazeb can assess, document, stabilise, and support environments originally built internally or by another provider.

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Keep what works. Fix what is creating risk, duplication and confusion.

If your Power BI environment has grown faster than the processes around it, tell us what is difficult today – inconsistent KPIs, slow reports, refresh failures, access, duplicated datasets, or unclear ownership. Datazeb can review the environment and create a practical path toward more reliable, scalable, and supportable BI.

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