Microsoft Power BI (Azure) connection

Last updated: May 06, 2025

To access your data in Power BI Pro or Premium, create a connection asset for it.

Microsoft Power BI is a business analytics solution that includes products and services for business intelligence (BI) reporting and data visualization. The qualifier Azure describes the extraction mode that is used to extract business intelligence report definitions. Automatic extraction connects to Power BI Pro or Power BI Premium through the Azure Active Directory.

Prerequisite

Create an application in the Microsoft Azure portal.

Create a connection to Microsoft Power BI (Azure)

To create the connection asset, you need the following connection details:

Directory ID: Azure Active Directory tenant ID
Application ID: Azure application ID
Client secret: Azure client secret
Optional: Username and Password for Azure

Choose the method for creating a connection based on where you are in the platform

In a project
Click Assets > New asset > Connect to a data source. See Adding a connection to a project.

In the Platform assets catalog
Click New connection. See Adding platform connections.

Next step: Add assets from the connection

Run metadata import to add assets and lineage information to a catalog.

Restrictions

Connection testing when you create or update the connection doesn't work for this connection. A connection is validated when you set up a metadata import that uses the connection.

Configuring lineage metadata import for Microsoft Power BI (Azure)

When you create a metadata import for the Microsoft Power BI (Azure) connection, you can set options specific to this data source, and define the scope of data for which lineage is generated. For details about metadata import, see Designing metadata imports.

To import lineage metadata for Microsoft Power BI (Azure), complete these steps:

Create a data source definition. Select Microsoft Power BI (Azure) as the data source type.
Create a connection to the data source in a project.
Create a metadata import. Learn more about options that are specific to Microsoft Power BI (Azure) data source:
- When you define a scope, you can analyze the entire data source or use the include and exclude options to define the exact workspaces and reports that you want to be analyzed. See Include and exclude lists.
- Optionally, you can provide external input. You add this file in the Add inputs from file field. The file must have a supported structure. See External inputs.

Include and exclude lists

You can include or exclude assets up to the the report level. Provide workspaces and reports in the format workspace/report. Each part is evaluated as a regular expression. Assets which are added later in the data source will also be included or excluded if they match the conditions specified in the lists. Example values:

myWorkspace/: all reports in myWorkspace,
myWorkspace2/.*: all reports in myWorkspace2,
myWorkspace3/myReport1: myReport1 from myWorkspace3,
myWorkspace4/myReport[1-5]: any report in myWorkspace4 with a name that starts with myReport and ends with a digit between 1 and 5.

External inputs

You can add Microsoft Power BI (Azure) Reports, Dataflows, and PowerQuery script as external inputs. The file can have the following structure:

<workspace_name> - A folder with the workspace name.
  [report_name].pbix - A PowerBI report. 
  [dataflow_ID].dataflow - A PowerBI dataflow.
  [report_name].txt - Manually extracted PowerQuery scripts for a specific report.
  [report_name].rdl - A paginated report.
  metadata.json - A file with metadata. If this file is provided, it overrides metadata that is extracted automatically for the specified workspace.