Power BI implementation planning

In this video, watch Matthew introduce you to the Power BI implementation planning series of articles.

Successfully implementing Power BI throughout the organization requires deliberate thought and planning. The Power BI implementation planning series provides you with key considerations, actions, decision-making criteria, and tactical recommendations. The articles in this series cover key subject areas when implementing Power BI, and they describe patterns for common usage scenarios.

Subject areas

When you implement Power BI, there are many subject areas to consider. The following subject areas form part of the Power BI implementation planning series:

• BI strategy
• Tenant setup
• User tools and devices
• Subscriptions, licenses, and trials
• Tenant administration
• Workspaces
• Data management
• Content lifecycle management
• Content distribution and sharing
• Security
• Information protection and data loss prevention
• Capacity management
• Data gateways
• Integration with other services
• Auditing and monitoring
• Adoption tracking
• Scaling and growing

Usage scenarios

The series includes usage scenarios that illustrate different ways that creators and consumers can deploy and use Power BI:

• Content collaboration and delivery
• Self-service BI
• Content management and deployment
• Embedding and hybrid

Purpose

When completed, the series will:

• Complement the Fabric adoption roadmap, which describes considerations for successful Microsoft Fabric and Power BI adoption and a healthy data culture. Power BI implementation planning guidance that correlates with the adoption roadmap goals will be added to this series.
• Replace the Power BI adoption framework (together with the Fabric adoption roadmap), which is a lightweight set of resources (videos and presentation slides) that were designed to help Microsoft partners deploy Power BI solutions for their customers. Relevant adoption framework action items will be merged into this series.

Recommendations

To set yourself up for success, we recommend that you work through the following steps:

1. Read the complete Fabric adoption roadmap, familiarizing yourself with each roadmap subject area. Assess your current state of Fabric adoption, and gain clarity on the data culture objectives for your organization.
2. Explore Power BI implementation planning articles that are relevant to you. Start with the Power BI usage scenarios, which convey how you can use Power BI in diverse ways. Be sure to understand which usage scenarios apply to your organization, and by whom. Also, consider how these usage scenarios might influence the implementation strategies you decide on.
3. Read the articles for each of the subject areas that are listed above. You might choose to initially do a broad review of the contents from top to bottom. Or you might choose to start with subject areas that are your highest priority. Carefully review the key decisions and actions that are included for each topic (at the end of each section). We recommend that you use them as a starting point for creating and customizing your plan.
4. When necessary, refer to Power BI documentation for details on specific topics.

Target audience

The intended audience of this series of articles might be interested in the following outcomes:

• Identifying areas to improve or strengthen their Power BI implementation.
• Increasing their ability to efficiently manage and securely deliver Power BI content.
• Planning the implementation of Power BI within their organization.
• Increasing their organization's return on investment (ROI) in Power BI.

This series is certain to be helpful for organizations that are in their early stages of a Power BI implementation or are planning an expanded implementation. It might also be helpful for those who work in an organization with one or more of the following characteristics:

• Power BI has pockets of viral adoption and success in the organization, but it's not consistently well-managed or purposefully governed.
• Power BI is deployed with some meaningful scale, but there are many unrealized opportunities for improvement.

Acknowledgments

The Power BI implementation planning articles are written by Melissa Coates, Kurt Buhler, and Peter Myers. Matthew Roche, from the Fabric Customer Advisory Team, provides strategic guidance and feedback to the subject matter experts.

Related content

In the next article in this series, learn about usage scenarios that describe how you can use Power BI in diverse ways.

Other helpful resources include:

• Fabric adoption roadmap
• Power BI migration overview

Experienced Power BI partners are available to help your organization succeed with the migration process. To engage a Power BI partner, visit the Power BI partner portal.