Power BI Reports: The Complete Enterprise Design Guide
Last updated by Errin O'Connor, Founder & Chief AI Architect, EPC Group
Everything you need to know about designing, building, and governing Power BI reports that drive data-informed decisions across your organization.
EPC Group designs, builds, and governs Power BI reports for Fortune 500 and regulated-industry clients. Our report engagements cover requirements, data modeling, DAX, visual design, row-level security, and deployment to Premium or Fabric.
Key Facts
- EPC Group has designed 1,500+ Power BI reports for Fortune 500 and regulated-industry clients.
- Every report includes row-level security, scheduled refresh, and mobile layout.
- Report development is priced after a scoping call for a fixed-fee accelerator engagement.
- We build reports that comply with HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP, and FERPA.
- Contact: (888) 381-9725 · contact@epcgroup.net
Power BI Reports: Enterprise Development and Consulting
EPC Group designs, builds, and governs Power BI reports for Fortune 500 companies and clients in regulated industries. Our report engagements include:
- Requirements gathering
- Data modeling
- DAX
- Visual design
- Row-level security
- Deployment to Premium or Fabric
What EPC Group Builds
- Executive dashboards — KPI scorecards with drill-through and alerting.
- Operational reports — high-refresh, near-real-time data for ops teams.
- Regulatory reports — paginated, pixel-perfect documents for compliance filings.
- Embedded reports — Power BI Embedded for customer-facing applications.
- Self-service analytics — governed semantic models for business-user exploration.
Our Report Development Process
Every report engagement starts with a stakeholder requirements session. We identify key metrics, data sources, and user roles before writing a single DAX measure.
- Week 1: Requirements — stakeholder interviews, KPI definition, data source audit.
- Week 2–4: Data model design — star schema, DAX measures, row-level security.
- Week 4–6: Report development — layout, visuals, drill-through, mobile layout.
- Week 7–8: Testing, UAT, and production deployment.
Compliance in Every Report
Every EPC Group report includes compliance controls by default. Row-level security limits data access by role. Sensitivity labels classify report content. Deployment pipelines separate development from production.
Pricing
- Fixed-fee report accelerator: priced after a scoping call (4–6 weeks).
- Full report portfolio (10–50 reports): fixed fee, scoped after a discovery call.
- Ongoing report managed service: $3,500–$15,000/month.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does EPC Group specialize in?
EPC Group specializes in enterprise Microsoft consulting — Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, Azure, SharePoint, and Copilot. We have completed 11,000+ enterprise engagements for Fortune 500 and regulated-industry clients.
How do I get started with EPC Group?
Call (888) 381-9725 or email contact@epcgroup.net. Every engagement starts with a one-hour call with the architect who will lead your project.
How much does EPC Group consulting cost?
EPC Group scopes every engagement individually rather than publishing a rate card. Cost depends on scope, duration, compliance requirements, and which Microsoft products are involved. After a free discovery session we provide a detailed SOW with fixed-price options.
Are you a Microsoft Solutions Partner?
Yes. EPC Group holds core Microsoft Solutions Partner designations including Data & AI, Modern Work, and Security.
Do you work with regulated industries?
Yes. Compliance is core to every EPC Group engagement. We architect for HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP, CMMC, FERPA, and GDPR from day one.
Schedule a Consultation
Talk to a Power BI architect about your project. The first call is with the architect who will lead your engagement — not a salesperson.
Call (888) 381-9725 or request a one-hour call with a senior architect.
About the Author
Errin O'Connor
Errin O'Connor is the Founder & Chief AI Architect of EPC Group. EPC Group is a Microsoft Solutions Partner (former Gold Partner, 2000–2022) with experience in enterprise consulting since 1997.
He is also the bestselling author of four published books on:
- Power BI
- SharePoint
- Azure
Errin has designed Power BI reporting architectures for Fortune 500 companies in various sectors, including healthcare, financial services, government, and manufacturing.
Need Expert Power BI Report Development?
Schedule a consultation to discuss your reporting needs. From data modeling to enterprise governance, our certified consultants deliver production-ready solutions.
Frequently Asked Questions About Power BI Reports
What are the different types of Power BI reports?
Power BI supports two primary report types: interactive reports and paginated reports. Interactive reports are built in Power BI Desktop and provide cross-filtering, drill-through, bookmarks, and slicers for dynamic data exploration. They are optimized for on-screen analysis. Paginated reports (built in Power BI Report Builder) are pixel-perfect, printable documents designed for scenarios requiring exact layout control such as invoices, regulatory filings, and multi-page operational reports. Both types can be published to the Power BI Service and distributed via workspaces, apps, or email subscriptions.
How do I share Power BI reports with stakeholders?
Power BI offers multiple sharing methods: (1) Power BI Apps bundle reports and dashboards into a curated experience distributed to specific audiences; (2) Direct sharing via URL grants access to individual users; (3) Embedding in SharePoint Online using the Power BI web part; (4) Microsoft Teams tabs for channel-level embedding; (5) Email subscriptions that deliver report snapshots on a schedule; (6) Power BI Embedded for external customers via Azure. For enterprise governance, Apps are the recommended distribution method because they support audience targeting, automatic content updates, and centralized access management.
What DAX measures should every Power BI report include?
Essential DAX measures vary by domain but commonly include: Total Revenue = SUM(Sales[Amount]), YoY Growth = DIVIDE([Total Revenue] - CALCULATE([Total Revenue], SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR(Calendar[Date])), CALCULATE([Total Revenue], SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR(Calendar[Date]))), Running Total = CALCULATE([Total Revenue], FILTER(ALL(Calendar[Date]), Calendar[Date] <= MAX(Calendar[Date]))), and Moving Average = AVERAGEX(DATESINPERIOD(Calendar[Date], MAX(Calendar[Date]), -3, MONTH), [Total Revenue]). Time intelligence measures require a proper date table marked as the date table in the model.
How do I optimize Power BI report performance?
Report performance optimization focuses on three areas: (1) Data model: Use star schema design, remove unnecessary columns, minimize calculated columns in favor of measures, and set appropriate data types; (2) DAX: Use variables to avoid repeated calculations, prefer SUMMARIZECOLUMNS over ADDCOLUMNS+SUMMARIZE, and avoid FILTER with large tables; (3) Visuals: Limit visuals per page to 8-10, use the Performance Analyzer to identify slow visuals, disable unnecessary visual interactions, and minimize use of custom visuals. Premium/Fabric capacities should enable query caching and aggregations for large datasets.
What is the difference between Power BI reports and dashboards?
Reports are multi-page interactive documents built in Power BI Desktop with full editing capabilities including slicers, drill-through, bookmarks, and detailed visualizations. Reports are the authoring and analysis layer. Dashboards are single-page canvases in the Power BI Service that display tiles pinned from one or more reports. Dashboards are the monitoring layer, supporting data alerts, natural language Q&A, and real-time streaming tiles. Reports offer deeper interactivity; dashboards offer at-a-glance monitoring across multiple data sources.
How do I implement row-level security in Power BI reports?
Row-level security (RLS) is defined in Power BI Desktop under Modeling > Manage Roles. Create roles with DAX filter expressions such as [Region] = USERPRINCIPALNAME() or [Department] = "Finance". After publishing, assign Azure AD users or security groups to roles in the Power BI Service under Dataset Settings > Security. Test RLS using "View as Role" in Desktop or Service. For dynamic RLS, use USERPRINCIPALNAME() or USERNAME() functions combined with a security mapping table. RLS works with Import and DirectQuery models and is enforced regardless of how the report is consumed (Service, embedded, mobile).
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- Power BI Row-Level Security (RLS): Enterprise Guide 2026
- Power BI Row-Level Security: Enterprise Guide 2026
Power BI Strategy: 2026 Considerations for Power BI Reports
Direct Lake mode has transformed the economics of enterprise Power BI in 2026. Now, semantic models can query Parquet files stored in OneLake. This approach offers performance similar to Import mode while eliminating the costs linked to refresh windows.
When an organization moves a model from scheduled Import-mode refresh to Direct Lake, we design for sub-second report interactions and verify them against your capacity and model; the Import data refresh is replaced by a metadata-only Direct Lake refresh called framing (Microsoft Learn, accessed 2026-10-28).
Row-level security (RLS) and object-level security (OLS) in Power BI Premium and Fabric F-SKU capacities are key compliance controls. These features are crucial for environments that must follow regulations such as:
- HIPAA
- SOC 2
- FINRA
Microsoft documents RLS as roles with DAX filter expressions defined in Power BI Desktop, members assigned in the Power BI service and each role checked with Test as role; RLS applies to workspace Viewers only, service principals cannot be added to an RLS role, and an embedding app that signs in with a service principal applies per-user RLS by passing an effective identity in the embed token (Microsoft Learn, accessed 2026-10-28).
EPC Group tests RLS with the real effective identity of each deployment scenario, because Test as role cannot simulate embedded or B2B guest identities.
Decision factors EPC Group evaluates
- Copilot grounding quality assessment of semantic-model metadata
- Direct Lake mode adoption for Fabric-resident semantic models
- License optimization audit (Pro vs Premium Per User vs F-SKU)
- Row-level security via service principal authentication
- Capacity sizing decision (F2/F4/F64+) tied to peak concurrent users and refresh window
EPC Group covers this topic across the relevant engagement portfolio. Reach the firm at contact@epcgroup.net for a one-hour call with a senior architect.