Azure Power BI Scanner OCF Connector: Overview¶
Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation
Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation
You can use the Azure Power BI Scanner OCF connector to catalog Power BI as a BI source in Alation. The connector catalogs Power BI objects such as workspaces, apps, dashboards, tiles, dataflows, datasets, and reports. It enables end users to search and find Power BI objects from the Alation user interface.
This connector only supports Power BI Cloud and does not support on-premise instances of Power BI.
Note
Newer versions of the Power BI Scanner OCF connector may require newer Alation versions. See Azure Power BI Scanner OCF Connector Release Notes for information on version compatibility.
The connector is available as a Zip file that can be uploaded and installed in the Alation application. The latest connector package can be downloaded from the Alation Customer Portal. Ask an Alation admin with access to Customer Portal to download the connector from the Connectors section (Customer Portal > Connectors).
Team¶
The following administrators are required to install this connector:
Alation Server Admin:
Installs the connector
Creates a Power BI source
Provisions Alation API tokens
Azure administrator:
Creates an application in Azure Cloud
Provisions application ID, tenant ID, and secret key
Provisions a security group and adds the created application to the group
Power BI administrator:
Grants consent to access Power BI admin APIs under the Power BI tenant settings
Scope¶
The table below shows what features are covered by the connector.
Feature |
Scope |
Availability |
---|---|---|
Power BI Instance |
Catalog a Power BI instance that exists in an Azure Cloud environment. The connector supports both Pro and Premium instances of Power BI. |
Yes |
Workspaces |
Catalog workspaces in Power BI. |
Yes |
Classical workspaces |
Catalog classical workspaces. |
Yes |
Workspace description |
Extract the description of a workspace. |
No |
Filter workspaces |
Ability to include or exclude specific workspaces. |
Yes |
Power BI reports |
Catalog reports in a workspace. |
Yes |
Power BI paginated reports |
Catalog paginated reports in a workspace. |
Yes |
Large Size Power BI Reports |
Catalog reports which are in large size. |
Yes |
Power BI reports from different workspace datasets |
Catalog reports that are created from datasets under different workspace. |
Yes |
Power BI report object data sources |
Catalog datasets used by report objects. |
Yes |
Paginated report object data sources |
Catalog data source used by a paginated report. |
No |
Report object lineage |
Catalog the lineage of a report object. Cross-data-source lineage is supported for:
|
Yes* |
Power BI dashboards |
Catalog dashboards in a workspace |
Yes |
Power BI dashboard tiles |
Catalog tiles of the dashboard |
Yes |
Power BI apps |
Catalog apps from Power BI |
Yes |
Power BI datasets |
Catalog datasets from Power BI |
Yes |
Power BI dataflows |
Catalog dataflows from Power BI |
Yes** |
Datasets without reports |
Catalog datasets which does not have reports |
Yes |
Datasets with XMLA |
Catalog datasets that are managed by XMLA endpoints |
Yes |
Datasets with incremental refresh |
Catalog datasets with incremental refresh |
Yes |
Dataset fields |
Catalog fields of dataset and DAX expressions of the fields |
Yes |
Dataflow fields |
Catalog fields of Dataflows |
Yes |
Report pages and visuals |
Catalog pages and visuals of a report |
No |
Report object dimensions, measures and expressions |
Catalog dimensions, measures and measure expressions of a report object |
No |
Report owner |
Owners or authors who created a report |
No |
Dashboard object measures and dimensions |
Catalog dimensions and measure of a dashboard object |
No |
Image preview |
Ability to show a thumbnail image of reports and dashboards |
No |
Popularity |
Popularity of dashboards and reports |
No |
Security replication |
Replicate access control to reports and dashboards |
No |
Filter reports |
Ability to include or exclude certain reports |
No |
Filter applications |
Ability to include or exclude certain applications |
No*** |
Source Description |
Extraction of the description from dataset fields |
Yes**** |
* Lineage for datasets that are created through Power BI dataflows is available from Alation version 2023.3.3. In older versions, lineage for datasets is only available if a dataset is created directly from the underlying data source.
** Lineage for dataflows is supported starting with Alation version 2023.3.3.
*** Apps cannot be directly selected and filtered. Filtering of apps is done based on the workspaces selected for extraction. Only the apps that belong to extracted workspaces will be cataloged in Alation.
**** Extraction of source descriptions is supported from connector version 1.4.3.
Power BI Objects Hierarchy¶
The following diagram shows the hierarchy of Power BI objects and how they are cataloged in Alation:
Power BI APIs¶
The following table lists the Power BI APIs used by this connector to extract metadata from Power BI:
Type |
Category |
API Endpoint |
Description |
---|---|---|---|
Authentication |
Authentication |
|
Gets the access token for authentication |
Workspace |
Admin |
|
Gets workspaces |
Apps |
Admin |
|
Gets Apps using admin API |
Modified Workspaces |
Scanner |
|
Gets the list of modified Workspace IDs |
Scan Request |
Scanner |
|
Gets the |
Scan Status |
Scanner |
|
Gets |
Scan Result |
Scanner |
|
If |
The following are the base URIs for Azure Power BI:
https://api.powerbi.com
https://api.powerbigov.us
- For Azure Government Cloud