How to Turn On Row Level Security in Power BI

Quick summary

Row-Level Security (RLS) in Power BI restricts data access at the row level based on user identity, ensuring each user sees only the data they are authorized to view. You can set up RLS by creating security roles with DAX filter expressions directly inside Power BI Desktop.

Steps

1. Navigate to the Modeling tab in the Power BI Desktop ribbon.
2. Select Manage Roles to begin setting up your Row-Level Security.
3. In the Manage Roles dialog box, click the + New button to create a new security role.
4. Give your role a descriptive name that clearly indicates its purpose, such as SalesTeamAccess or RegionalManagers.
5. Select the table that contains the data you want to filter, typically a dimension table with user or region identifiers.
6. Click Switch to DAX editor to create advanced filtering conditions using DAX expressions for greater flexibility in defining security rules.
7. Enter your DAX filter expression to define the row-level data restriction for the role.
8. Click Save to apply your RLS role configuration to the model.
9. A confirmation appears once you have successfully implemented Row-Level Security in Power BI — your setup is now active and ready to test.
10. Users assigned to the role will only see data that meets your filter criteria, keeping sensitive information secure based on their identity.