Row-level security means two people opening the same dashboard can see different numbers, because each sees only their rows. A PM sees their projects; a sub’s staff never see the GC’s bids; a private RFI counts only for the people allowed to open it.
Why it matters
Most construction BI is built on exports, and exports lose permissions. Once data sits in a spreadsheet or a BI model, anyone with the file sees everything, so access is either locked down to a few people or quietly too broad. Row-level security is what lets a company give dashboards to everyone without leaking margin, bids or private records.
Common mistakes
- Rebuilding permissions by hand in the BI tool, where they drift from the source system.
- Showing zero where a viewer has no access, which reads as “nothing there” instead of “not yours to see”.
- Sharing a dashboard and assuming the share grants the underlying data.
How os.construction handles it
Analytics runs every tile as the viewer. Each metric needs read access to its source tool, tools with private records apply their own visibility row by row, and a number you can’t read is blank, never zero. Sharing a dashboard shares the layout, never the data. That’s why Analytics can be turned on for every user. See permissions and visibility.