How We Delivered a Power BI Governance Framework for a UK Charity
A UK charity with a growing Power BI estate needed to strengthen security and governance across their environment. As Power BI adoption had expanded organically across teams, gaps had emerged in workspace structure, row-level security, licensing allocation and semantic model ownership - raising questions about data access, long-term scalability and readiness for wider rollout. Our proven Power BI governance methodology gave the charity the clarity, structure and roadmap they needed to move forward with confidence.
The Challenge: Establishing a Power BI Governance Framework at Scale
Like many organisations that have adopted Power BI quickly, the charity's environment had grown organically as different teams built reports to meet immediate needs. With ambitions to enable safe self-service analytics and demonstrate strong data controls to internal and external stakeholders, leadership wanted to get ahead of the common governance challenges we see across organisations of this size - before they became blockers.
Common Power BI governance challenges we address in engagements like this:
- Workspace structures that have grown organically over time, without a consistent standard for naming, ownership or access.
- Security models that rely on workspace-level access alone, without row-level security (RLS) or object-level security (OLS) in place for sensitive data.
- Semantic model ownership that has become unclear as reports have been built on top of each other, creating hidden dependencies.
- Licensing allocation, particularly Premium Per User (PPU), that has been assigned reactively rather than planned against actual usage and cost efficiency.
- No defined pathway for enabling self-service report authors without compromising governance standards.
- Limited documentation around workspace roles, Entra (Azure AD) group usage, app audiences, org apps and dataset certification.
The internal sponsor wanted a tailored framework that addressed these areas proactively and created a sustainable foundation for the charity's long-term data strategy.
Our Solution: Tailored Power BI Governance Framework & Roadmap
Discovery & Stakeholder Engagement
We applied our proven Power BI governance methodology - refined across many organisations - to build a complete picture of the charity's current state and future ambitions. We engaged with the right stakeholders across IT, data, finance, programmes and executive leadership to understand where the real challenges were, how Power BI was being used day to day and where the organisation wanted to be in the short, medium and long term. This discovery phase ensured every recommendation was grounded in the charity's reality, not a generic template.
Tailored Power BI Framework & Data Architecture
We designed a Power BI framework covering Power BI workspaces, Power BI app strategy, audience configuration and org apps - aligned with Microsoft best practices and tailored to the charity's scale and team structure. Alongside this, we defined a data architecture across two horizons: a short-term design that could be implemented with existing resources and a long-term Microsfot Fabric architecture showing how the environment could evolve as data maturity grew. This dual-horizon approach ensured the charity didn't over-engineer early and didn't hit scalability ceilings later.
Security Model: RLS, OLS, Workspace Roles & Entra Groups
We established a layered Power BI security model covering row-level security (RLS), object-level security (OLS), workspace roles and Entra (Azure AD) group-based access management. Given that charities typically hold sensitive beneficiary and financial data, the model was designed to be secure - with clear mappings between Entra groups, Power BI workspace roles and dataset-level permissions. This removed ambiguity over who could access what and created an audit trail that could be reviewed at any time.
Governed Semantic Models & Self-Service Enablement
We assisted in establishing governed, controlled semantic models as the foundation for trusted reporting. Rather than allowing every report author to build their own dataset/model, we defined standards for certified datasets, naming conventions, ownership and endorsement. This gave the charity a clear path to enabling self-service analytics safely - with documented prerequisites that teams needed to meet before being granted authoring permissions. Users were empowered in the right way: with trusted data, clear boundaries and the training to work within them.
Licensing & Cost Analysis
We completed a full review of the charity's Premium Per User (PPU) licensing setup, analysing actual usage, workspace allocation and cost efficiency. Our analysis identified where PPU was genuinely needed versus where Pro licences would suffice, and provided a forward-looking cost model aligned with the charity's growth plans. We explored when it would make sense to look into F-SKUs starting with lower F-SKUs for other MS Fabric workloads when the time is right.
Delivery Roadmap & Risk Analysis
We delivered a detailed implementation roadmap that gave the charity a complete picture of what needed to happen, when, and who was responsible. Each recommendation was broken into clearly defined phases, with every item scoped, sequenced and assigned to specific owners - whether internal IT, the data team or external partners. Each phase included prerequisites that needed to be in place before work began, estimated effort, dependencies on other workstreams and a risk analysis covering what could go wrong and how to mitigate it.
This level of detail gave the charity:
- Clarity on exactly what needed to be implemented and in what order, removing months of uncertainty around priorities.
- Foundational understanding of the preparatory work that had to be completed before any implementation could begin safely.
- Confidence in resourcing and timelines, with realistic effort estimates rather than assumptions.
- A robust risk analysis that surfaced potential issues early rather than mid-project, allowing decisions to be made before they became problems.
- A shared reference point for leadership, IT and auditors - so every stakeholder was working from the same plan, in the same language.
- A defensible business case, making it easier for the internal sponsor to secure sign-off on the programme.
The roadmap transformed what had been a vague governance problem into a structured programme the leadership team could understand, approve and track - giving the charity a clear plan for everything that would follow.
Technology, Features & Methodology Used
Power BI Service, Power BI Desktop, Power BI Premium Per User (PPU), Row-Level Security (RLS), Object-Level Security (OLS), Workspace Roles, Entra (Azure AD) Groups, Power BI Apps & Audiences, Org Apps, Certified Semantic Models, Dataset Endorsement, Power BI Governance Framework Methodology, Measure Killer, DAX Studio.
Outcomes & Impact
The solution we delivered provided the charity with:
- A secure and governed Power BI environment with documented security, access and ownership controls.
- A tailored Power BI governance framework covering workspaces, apps, audiences, org apps, workspace roles and Entra group integration.
- A layered security model using RLS, OLS and workspace roles aligned with sensitive data handling requirements.
- Governed, certified semantic models forming a trusted foundation for self-service analytics.
- A short-term and long-term data architecture giving the charity room to grow without re-work.
- A licensing and cost analysis that optimised Premium Per User (PPU) allocation against charity budget constraints.
- A clear, phased roadmap sequencing every recommendation with owners, prerequisites, effort and risks.
- A defined path to safely enabling self-service analytics without compromising governance standards.
