Microsoft has announced an interesting new feature for the Power Bi Admin Portal. The Service Administrator role gives the ability to grant specific Admin Portal access for users. In a blog post to announce the feature, the Power Bi team explains the new role can be run through a PowerShell command.
With the Power Bi Service Administrator role, users can be assigned access to the Admin Portal. However, the role only offers this specific access, meaning those users cannot access Office 365 administrative roles.
Microsoft explains that customers have been happy in general with the Admin Portal. This gives Power Bi customers the ability to see their data usage and manage how the service is accessed throughout an organization. However, the company says customers found accessing the Portal hard because “it was only available to Office 365 Global Administrators”.
As mentioned, the new Service Admin role can be run through a PowerShell command. This means you will need Azure Active Directory PowerShell Module installed. If you do, you can ass the following command:
Add-MsolRoleMember -RoleMemberEmailAddress “[email protected]” -RoleName “Power BI Service Administrator”
Microsoft says it has an alternative access solution in the works. The role will be assignable through the Office 365 Admin Center by the close of the year.
Power Bi Expansion
Since its general shift to a cloud-first company focused on enterprise, Microsoft has put a lot of time into Power Bi. We have seen numerous new updates in recent months. Moreover, Microsoft is adding a lot of features and functionality to the data visualization tool with each passing month.
For example, recently the company made available the Office 365 adoption pack for Power BI. The service lets admins visualize and analyze usage data with ease.