Having business intelligence in your company is a key element for improving decision-making capabilities. But who should you give the keys to your BI within your organization? Do all employees need access?
Well, we can start by saying that free access without any governance will overshadow the benefits of BI in the company. That’s why having an adequate data governance strategy is essential to make the most of it.
Here are some recommendations you should consider when determining who should have access to your BI.
First, properly structure your company’s information
With a clear definition of the data your company will work with, it becomes easier to establish the level of access each employee should have. Let’s look at an example: if your company has a sales team organized by countries, regions, and cities, you can group data by that structure and provide access for each team member accordingly. This way, a salesperson with a smaller scope will only be able to access their own sales data, while someone managing multiple regions will have broader access privileges.
Think about making your employees’ work more efficient.
Evaluate each employee’s role and how they currently perform their tasks. Ask yourself if you can make it easier for them to access the information they need to do their jobs. This will help you identify opportunities to grant the right level of access to the right people in less time. A BI tool that provides valuable information to its users becomes an indispensable part of their work, leading to greater efficiency and faster response times.
Here are some examples of the types of information different roles may need access to:
Executive management: They need consolidated reports to make strategic decisions. With BI4Web’s pyramid navigation, they can move from a global overview down to the level of detail necessary to understand what’s happening in the company.
Department managers or process leaders: They need access to specific data to manage teams and projects. You can make their work easier by providing access not only to their areas of responsibility but also to related data from other departments that impact their work—always with a clear governance strategy so they don’t end up overwhelmed with unnecessary information.
Data analysts: They perform more specialized analyses, so their access should be limited to their analytics area.
Follow the principle of least privilege.
This principle states that each person, application, or system should have only the permissions and access strictly necessary to perform their functions. A simple example: if someone’s role is to analyze sales, there’s no need for them to access HR data.
Ensure confidential and sensitive data is protected.
In addition to making sure every employee sees information relevant to their role, you must also consider that some data requires additional protection due to its confidentiality or sensitivity.
Examples of confidential information include financial data, key client data, or HR reports.
Control the level of access.
Viewing data is not the same as modifying or deleting it. Therefore, each role must have the appropriate access level according to its responsibilities within the company. Here are some examples of access levels a user might need:
A. Read-only
Allows employees to view data without making any changes. Ideal for those who need to make data-driven decisions but are not supposed to modify the information.
B. Creation of analyses or reports
This level of access allows users to create dashboards and data visualizations.
C. Full or administrative access
These users can configure the system, manage permissions, and perform critical BI maintenance tasks.
Choose a BI solution that makes all of this easy.
With BI4Web, you can securely provide your employees with the data access they need. Request a free trial and see for yourself how you can start making data-driven decisions safely.