BI Administration, Data Governance, Microsoft Certification, PL-300, Power BI

Promote or certify Power BI content (PL-300 Exam Prep)

 
This post is a part of the PL-300: Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst Exam Prep Hub; and this topic falls under these sections:
Manage and secure Power BI (15–20%)
   --> Create and manage workspaces and assets
      --> Promote or certify Power BI content

Note that there are 10 practice questions (with answers and explanations) at the end of each topic. Also, there are 2 practice tests with 60 questions each available on the hub below all the exam topics.

Overview

In Power BI, promoting and certifying content helps organizations establish trust, data governance, and self-service analytics at scale. These features allow users to quickly identify which datasets, reports, and dataflows are approved for reuse and suitable for decision-making.

For the PL-300 exam, you must understand:

  • The difference between promoted and certified content
  • Who can promote or certify content
  • Which Power BI artifacts support these labels
  • How promotion and certification impact discovery, reuse, and governance

What Does It Mean to Promote Content?

Promoted content indicates that an item is recommended for use, but it has not gone through a formal certification process.

Key Characteristics of Promoted Content

  • Signals good quality and usefulness
  • Often created by experienced report authors or teams
  • Does not require tenant-level approval
  • Can be promoted by:
    • Dataset owners
    • Workspace members (depending on permissions)

Supported Artifacts

  • Datasets (semantic models)
  • Dataflows
  • Reports

Common Use Cases

  • Department-level datasets
  • Team-managed reports
  • Content that is reliable but still evolving

What Does It Mean to Certify Content?

Certified content represents the highest level of trust in Power BI. It indicates that the content has been reviewed, approved, and governed according to organizational standards.

Key Characteristics of Certified Content

  • Approved by authorized reviewers
  • Requires Power BI tenant admin configuration
  • Used as a single source of truth
  • Clearly marked with a Certified badge

Who Can Certify Content?

  • Users assigned as certifiers by a Power BI tenant administrator
  • Typically part of:
    • IT
    • Data governance
    • Center of Excellence (CoE)

Supported Artifacts

  • Datasets (semantic models)
  • Dataflows

Important for the exam:
Reports cannot be certified directly — certification applies to the underlying dataset or dataflow.

Promote vs. Certify: Key Differences

FeaturePromotedCertified
Approval requiredNoYes
Tenant admin involvementNoYes
Trust levelMediumHigh
Intended audienceTeam or departmentOrganization-wide
Governance reviewInformalFormal
Exam relevanceMediumHigh

How Promotion and Certification Affect Users

When users browse content in Power BI:

  • Certified items appear first in searches
  • Users are encouraged to build new reports using certified datasets
  • Reduces duplication of datasets and metrics
  • Improves consistency across reports and dashboards

This directly supports self-service analytics with governance, a recurring PL-300 theme.

Where Promotion and Certification Are Configured

Promotion and certification are managed in:

  • Power BI Service
  • Dataset or dataflow Settings
  • Workspace context (not Power BI Desktop)

Tenant admins control:

  • Whether certification is enabled
  • Who can certify content

Exam Scenarios to Watch For

On the PL-300 exam, expect scenarios like:

  • Choosing between promoted vs. certified content
  • Identifying who can certify a dataset
  • Determining why a report cannot be certified
  • Understanding how certification affects dataset reuse

Best Practices (Exam-Relevant)

  • Promote content that is reliable but not formally governed
  • Certify content that is:
    • Widely used
    • Business-critical
    • Carefully validated
  • Use certification to enforce:
    • Metric consistency
    • Trusted KPIs
    • Enterprise reporting standards

Key Takeaways for PL-300

  • Promotion = recommended, informal trust
  • Certification = governed, enterprise-approved trust
  • Only datasets and dataflows can be certified
  • Certification requires tenant admin setup
  • Certified content supports scalable self-service BI

Practice Questions

Go to the Practice Questions for this topic.

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