Proving external partners could never see each other's Power BI data

The challenge

This retail data provider had already built partner-facing Power BI reports, giving external retail partners visibility of their own sales, product and regional performance. The reports existed and worked. What the provider didn't have was certainty.

Before opening the reports up to external partners, the provider needed to know, not assume, that one wrong setting couldn't expose a partner's data to another partner looking at the same report. With multiple partners set to view similar dashboards, the risk wasn't hypothetical: a single misconfigured filter or missing security rule could quietly leak one partner's figures to another.

There was also a design and usability question sitting alongside the security one. The reports had been built for internal use first, and needed a second look to confirm they made sense and behaved appropriately once external, non-technical partner users were the ones opening them.

Nothing about the fix could be allowed to disrupt what the internal team already relied on. Whatever changed had to sit alongside the existing internal reporting, not replace or interfere with it.

Our approach

1. 01

   Reviewing the existing reports

   We reviewed the partner-facing Power BI reports for both design and usability, checking that layouts, filters and navigation made sense for an external partner audience rather than the internal team the reports were originally built around.

2. 02

   Locking access down with Row-Level Security

   We implemented Row-Level Security rules to enforce partner data isolation at the data model level, rather than relying on report-level filters that a partner could potentially navigate around.

3. 03

   Testing with a real external account

   Rather than trusting the configuration on paper, we tested the reports using a genuine external partner account, comparing every figure shown back against the client's own internal numbers to confirm they matched to the cent, and that no other partner's data was visible from that account.

4. 04

   Closing off export and extraction options

   We reviewed and restricted export and data extraction options specifically for external partner accounts, so partners can view their own performance without a path to extract or download data beyond what was intended.

5. 05

   Building a repeatable process for new partners

   With the security model proven, we documented and handed over a simple, repeatable process for onboarding future partners, so the internal team can add a new partner themselves without needing security re-verified from scratch each time.

The outcome

Partner data isolation was tested and verified to the cent using a real external account, rather than assumed to be correct because the settings looked right on paper.

Export and extraction options have been closed off for external partners specifically, while remaining exactly as they were for the internal team, so nothing the internal team relied on day to day was disrupted by the change.

Adding a new partner has gone from a configuration exercise carrying real risk, to a simple, repeatable task the internal team can now run itself, with confidence the same isolation guarantees apply automatically.