Allows a person to make new things on top of a semantic model: reports, Analyze in Excel sessions or XMLA endpoint queries, for example. Anyone with the Contributor workspace role or higher gets it without being granted it separately.
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Terms in this definition
- Semantic model
Sometimes called an OLAP model, this Power BI and Fabric layer defines the measures, hierarchies, tables and relationships that reports and dashboards query; star schema design is the usual pattern.
- Analyze in Excel
A way to explore a published semantic model from Excel: the service produces a workbook connected live to the model, so PivotTables send MDX queries to it. Users need Build permission on the model.
- XMLA endpoint
Opens Premium, Premium Per User and Fabric semantic models to SSMS, Tabular Editor, DAX Studio and similar tools over XMLA. Read-only unless set to read-write per capacity, which also permits deployment and management.
- Contributor
Built-in Azure role with full management of resources, except that it can't give access to anyone.
- Workspace
Teams in Power BI and Microsoft Fabric collaborate in this folder-style container, which groups items such as reports, semantic models and lakehouses, controls who can access them and is assigned a capacity.
- Role
How an actor normally or expectedly behaves, or the part a person takes in a process. A single actor may hold more than one role.
Related terms
- Export data
An option on a visual for downloading its data to Excel or .csv, either as summarised data or, for users with Build permission, as underlying data. What is permitted depends on report and tenant settings, and tenant settings win where they conflict.
- Semantic model discoverability
Provided discovery tenant settings allow it, people lacking access can spot promoted or certified semantic models through OneLake catalog search and ask for Build permission. This grants nothing by itself; it is not a security control.
- Shared semantic model
One published semantic model that lots of reports, frequently in different workspaces, connect to, giving the organisation a single source of truth. Anyone building reports on it needs Build permission.
- Underlying data
Exports, from the Power BI service, a visual's data together with related semantic model data that isn't hidden, all unaggregated. It may require Build permission, and tenant or report settings can switch it off.