Power BI Endorsement: To promote or to certify?

In a recent Pragmatic Works training video, Angelica Choo Quan, a trainer at Pragmatic Works, explored a vital concept for Power BI users: endorsement of content. Endorsement in Power BI increases the visibility of datasets, reports, dataflows, and apps, making it easier for colleagues to identify reliable and trustworthy content. Angelica walked through the endorsement process, the available options, and the significance of promoting versus certifying Power BI content.

Why Endorsement Matters

In organizations with a growing number of shared datasets, the Power BI service can quickly become saturated. Users may face hundreds of datasets—often with similar names and multiple versions—making it difficult to locate the right one. Endorsement helps solve this by providing clear visibility to content that has been reviewed, prepared, and validated for reporting purposes.

Content Types Eligible for Endorsement

Angelica highlighted that endorsement is not limited to datasets alone. Within Power BI, the following content types can be endorsed:

• Datasets
• Dataflows
• Reports
• Apps

For simplicity, the video focused primarily on datasets, since they form the foundation for building reliable reports and dashboards.

Enabling Endorsement

Before endorsing content, users must have the feature enabled by their Power BI tenant administrator. If endorsement options appear grayed out, it means permission has not been granted. Angelica advised contacting the administrator to request access, particularly for individuals who are responsible for managing and validating organizational data.

The Three Endorsement Options

Angelica described three possible states for datasets in Power BI:

1. No Endorsement – Default state for datasets, with no added visibility or assurance.
2. Promoted – Indicates that the dataset is clean, optimized, and ready for reporting. Dataset owners can use this to let colleagues know that their content is reliable for use in building reports.
3. Certified – A higher level of trust, reserved for datasets that meet organizational standards and have been verified by authorized experts. Certified datasets are prominently displayed above promoted ones in the service.

Promoting a Dataset

Promotion signals that a dataset is prepared and available for general use. For example, a dataset owner who has carefully cleaned and structured the data model can endorse it as Promoted so colleagues can confidently connect to it when building reports. While this provides visibility, it still allows for multiple promoted datasets to exist within the same environment.

Certifying a Dataset

Certification represents the highest level of endorsement. Unlike promotion, this designation should only be available to individuals with deep knowledge of the dataset, such as data stewards or senior BI professionals. A Certified dataset communicates to the organization that the content has been thoroughly vetted, meets all necessary criteria, and is safe to use for enterprise-wide reporting.

Angelica emphasized that certification should not be open to everyone. Restricting this capability ensures only the most reliable, performance-optimized datasets are marked as certified, thereby preventing confusion and maintaining consistency in organizational reporting.

How Endorsed Content Appears

Once endorsement has been applied, Power BI clearly separates datasets in the workspace and the data hub. Certified datasets are displayed above promoted ones, which in turn appear above those with no endorsement. This ranking makes it easier for users to identify trustworthy content quickly.

Additionally, organizations can choose to feature endorsed datasets on user homepages. This ensures the most important and reliable content is placed “front and center,” enhancing discoverability and reducing time spent searching through multiple datasets.

Key Takeaways from Angelica

• Endorsement improves discoverability in Power BI by surfacing quality datasets and reports.
• Users can Promote content to indicate it is prepared and trustworthy for reporting.
• Certified datasets carry a higher level of assurance and should only be designated by trusted experts.
• Permissions for endorsement must be enabled by the Power BI tenant administrator.
• Certified content appears above promoted content, creating a natural hierarchy of trust in the data hub.

Conclusion

Endorsement in Power BI is a powerful way to guide colleagues toward the most reliable datasets, reports, and apps. By promoting content, dataset owners can mark their work as ready for use. By certifying content, organizations can ensure that the most trusted and authoritative datasets receive top visibility. Angelica Choo Quan’s walkthrough provides a clear path for organizations to use endorsements effectively, ensuring data is both discoverable and dependable across the enterprise.

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