5 Power BI Features That Fix Ownership Chaos Every February

February is when Power BI stops failing technically and starts failing organizationally.

Author

Glenda Carnate
February 05, 2026

Read time: 2.5 minutes

The reports continue to load. The datasets continue to refresh. To the outsider, everything appears to be fine with Power BI.

Decisions take longer to make, and people do not want to commit to a decision. Someone questions which metric is "official," and the room becomes quiet. After the reorganization, dashboards were deployed quickly without appropriate mapping of who would take ownership. As a result, it is unclear to the owner of a given dashboard.

Power BI did not create the chaos, but it has exposed it.

5 Power BI Characteristics That Reinstitute Ownership:

1. Dataset Ownership

Problem it Fixes: When reports are distributed across departments, who owns them?

How to Use: Designate someone in the Power BI Service as the ‘Dataset Owner’.

If a dataset doesn’t have an owner, it shouldn’t be in production.


2. Endorsements (Certified/Promoted)

Problem it Fixes: Users won’t know who to believe.

How to Use: Only Certified datasets should be available for the executive level to view.

All other datasets should remain in exploratory mode.


3. Lineage View

Problem it Fixes: Re-orgs cause hidden interdependencies.

How to Use: Use Lineage View to locate:

  • Orphaned datasets

  • Reports utilizing deprecated sources

You will want to fix or archive any discovered in February.


4. Workspace Roles

Problem it Fixes: Since ‘BI’ owns everything, no one owns anything.

How to Use: Assign a single person to be the technical owner of the workspace by using either the Workspace Admin or Member role.

No groups, one person.


5. Usage Metrics

Problem it Fixes: Unowned dashboards exist, which cause prolonged decision-making.

How to Use: Use the Usage Metrics report to conduct a final review of the current usage of existing dashboards.

If the dashboard has low usage and is unowned, unpublish the dashboard.

💡Key Takeaway: 

Power BI loses credibility with end users based on the accountability of the numbers, not the accuracy of the numbers.  As we near the end of the fiscal year, we have seen accountability through ownership tested.  Systems without accountability will slowly but surely fail without ever being obvious to anyone that these systems are failing.

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