Dashboard data classifications allow administrators of Power BI to define data security classifications for dashboards in the Power BI service. Once configured in the Power BI admin portal, Power BI Pro users responsible for creating and editing dashboards in app workspaces can associate one of the available classifications to each dashboard. Additionally, the classification tags can be linked to external URLs to provide users with additional information, such as the organization's definitions and policies for each data classification.

The data security tags, such as Confidential or Public, serve to raise awareness regarding the sensitivity of the content and thus reduce the risk that protected data is inappropriately exposed or distributed.

For example, an organization could allow certain security groups of users to share Power BI content with users outside of the organization but, as an organizational policy, require that this content matches certain data classifications, such as public or low business impact.

In the following screenshot from the Power BI admin portal, four dashboard data classifications have been configured:

In the preceding example, the Organizational classification has been defined as the default data classification. This setting causes all new dashboards and any existing dashboard which have not been assigned to a different classification to be tagged as Organizational. For usability and reference purposes, a three-letter shorthand acronym and a URL link to a corporate site have been assigned to each classification, respectively.

With the data classifications for the organization configured, a user with edit rights to a dashboard can assign a classification via the Dashboard settings menu, as shown in the following screenshot:

In the preceding example for the Global Sales dashboard, the default Organizational classification is switched to Confidential. The Dashboard settings menu can be accessed from within a dashboard by clicking the ellipsis (three dots) to the right of the Web view/Phone view dropdown. Alternatively, the settings for a dashboard can be accessed from outside the dashboard via the gear icon in the ACTIONS group within the app workspace.

In the following screenshot, the shorthand tag of the Data classification assigned to each dashboard is populated in the workspace:

Just like the icons under the ACTIONS group, hovering the cursor over the CLASSIFICATION tag (for example, CON,) creates a pointing icon and displays the full name of the classification (Confidential) as a tool tip. Clicking the tag will open the URL associated with the given classification in a separate browser tab.