Power BI Reporting on Project for the Web / Which permissions required for service account?

[CuriousProjectUser]

Hello,

we're currently starting to use Project for the Web pilot-wise for single project management use cases. And as we're also using MS Project Online, we're thinking about enabling Project for the Web on organizational level (e.g. porfolio views) for individual departments or teams as an alternative as it currently seems to be a lot "lighter" and less training intensive than Project Online.

However, concerning the reporting side, we're currently lost and basic first question is, how can we enable a service account or a user to not only see the PfW projects created by herself, but all projects in the dataverse?

Assuming that this is a complete beginner question I'm looking forward for any source, hint or help that will support us getting started.

Kind regards

Peter

[#2]

It's not such a beginner question at all, Peter. I built my first app in Power Apps just so I could see the projects I created for myself in Pftw. Since then I've learned even MVPs are challenged to make sense of the project data world when looking at Dataverse and portfolios.

To understand the data side better, look to Azure and the Power Platform. You may want to use Power app widgets in Power BI to manage portfolios if you are not using the Portfolio function in Project Online.

[#3]

CuriousProjectUser --

The default permissions in Project for the Web only allow each user to see the projects that he/she has created, or that were shared with him/her. Ironically, it is very easy in Project Online to "tweak" the default permissions so that every PM can see all projects in the database. In your situation with Project for the Web, I think your best solution is to create one or more reports in Power BI that will show all of the projects in the system. Just a thought. Hope this helps.

[#4]

Dear Dale, the approach is what we intend to, as every PM in Project for the Web should only see his/her project. However, from a portfolio management perspective, a Power BI report showing all Project for the Web projects is what we're looking for. I already connected via Power Query to the dataverse instance, also there I only see PfW projects created by me. I assume that my permissions, or the permissions of a non-user related technical service account for reporting need to be configured. But I don't have any clue how/where to do that. Do you have a hint?

[#5]

Thank your for the information, I hoped for some simple permissions modification, like, e.g. adding a service account "Project_Portfolio_Reader" to a pre-defined permission group like "Portfolio_Viewers" so that we can create transparency on all the Project for the Web-projects in the dataverse instance (be it for administrative purpose or real portfolio-management), because we're struggling with only seeing the projects the respective user connecting to the dataverse has created.