Configure Connection to Power BI Scanner Source

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

After you install the Azure Power BI Scanner OCF connector, you must configure the connection to the BI source.

The various steps involved in configuring the Azure Power BI Scanner source connection are:

1. Provide Access

2. Connect to BI Source

Provide Access

Go to the Access tab on the Settings page of your BI source

You can configure the visibility of a BI source and its child objects such as Folders and Reports on the Access tab of the settings page.

Configure BI Source Visibility

Applies from release 2023.3.5

On the Access tab, follow these steps to set the BI source visibility:

1. Select one of the following options for setting privacy level:

   • Public BI Server—The BI source will be visible to all users of the catalog.

   • Private BI Server—The BI Source will be visible to users who have been granted the BI Server Admin or Viewer permissions. It will be hidden for all other users.

2. Add one or more BI Server Admins or Viewers in the User Access section if required.

For more information on access to BI sources, see Configure Access to OCF BI Sources.

Configure BI Folder and Report Visibility

Applies from release 2024.1.4

On the Settings under a BI Folder or Report, follow these steps to set visibility:

1. Check the option Enable explicit permission to change access permission defined at the parent level object.

   This enables and allows permissions at the object level. By default, the access permissions are inherited from the parent level and are not editable.

2. Select one of the following options to set a privacy level:

• Public—The BI folder or report will be visible to all users of the catalog.

• Private—The BI folder or report will be visible to users that have been granted the BI Server Admin or Viewer permissions. It will be hidden for all other users.

3. Add one or more BI Server Admins or Viewers in the User Access section if required.

For more information on how to enable the feature and configure access to a folder or report, see Configure Access to OCF BI Folders and Reports.

Connect to BI Source

To connect to the BI source, you must perform these steps:

1. Provide the Connection URLs

2. Configure Authentication

3. Configure Proxy Settings (Optional)

4. Test the Connection

5. Configure Advanced Settings

6. Configure Logging

Provide the Connection URLs

To provide to the connection URL in the Alation UI, perform these steps:

Connector Version 2.3.0 and NewerConnector Versions Prior to 2.3.0

From Alation version 2024.1.4 and connector version 2.3.0

1. On the Settings page of your BI source, go to the General Settings tab.

2. In the Provide the connection URLs section, enter the following details:

Parameter	Description
PowerBI API URL	Specify the API URL to access Power BI APIs. The default values are: https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/ for enterprise and https://api.powerbigov.us/v1.0/myorg/ for Azure Government Cloud
Access Token URL	Specify the API URL to generate the Access Token. The default value is https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/token
PowerBI Resource URL	Specify the Power BI Resource URL to grant access scope to Power BI APIs. The default values are: https://analysis.windows.net/powerbi/api for enterprise and https://analysis.usgovcloudapi.net/powerbi/api for Azure Government Cloud

3. Click Save.

Configure Authentication

To configure authentication in the Alation UI, perform these steps:

Connector Version 2.3.0 and NewerConnector Versions Prior to 2.3.0

From Alation version 2024.1.4 and connector version 2.3.0

1. On the Settings page of your BI source, go to the General Settings tab.

2. In the Configure authentication section, enter the following details:

Parameter	Description
Azure tenant ID	Specify the Directory (tenant) ID of the application registration.
Client ID	Specify the Application (client) ID of the application registration.
Client Secret	Specify the client secret of the application registration.

3. Click Save.

Configure Proxy Settings

Note

This step is optional.

If Azure Power BI Scanner is connected using proxy connection, provide the following details:

Connector Version 2.3.0 and NewerConnector Versions Prior to 2.3.0

From Alation version 2024.1.4 and connector version 2.3.0

1. On the Settings page of your BI source, go to the General Settings tab.

2. In the Proxy configuration section, enter the following details:

Parameter	Description
Proxy URL	Specify the URL to access Power BI using a proxy server.
Proxy Port	Specify the proxy port number.
Proxy Username	Specify the proxy server username.
Proxy Password	Specify the proxy server password.

3. Click Save.

Test the Connection

The connection test checks BI server connectivity. Alation uses the connection information you provided to confirm when the connection is established.

After specifying the connection details in Configure Authentication , test the connection.

To validate the network connectivity, go to General Settings > Test connection of the Settings page of your BI server source and click Test.

A dialog box appears confirming the status of the connection test.

Alation checks to ensure that the Service Principal is valid and also verifies the connection details before establishing the connection.

Configure Advanced Settings

Note

This step is optional.

Apart from the mandatory configurations that you perform to connect to the BI Server source in the General Settings tab, you can configure the following additional settings:

• Configure BI Server Lookup URI

• Enable or Disable Automatic Lineage Generation

Configure BI Server Lookup URI

You ust provide the BI Server Lookup URI to redirect users to BI objects from their respective catalog pages using the Connector link on the catalog page. Perform these steps to provide the BI Server Lookup URI:

Connector Version 2.3.0 and NewerConnector Versions Prior to 2.3.0

From Alation version 2024.1.4 and connector version 2.3.0

1. Go to General Settings > Advanced settings section of the Settings page of your BI Server source.

2. Provide the BI server URI for in the BI server lookup URI field to redirect users to BI objects from their respective catalog pages using the Connector link on the catalog page.

   For example: For PowerBI enterprise, you can include https://app.powerbi.com/ as a BI server lookup URI.

3. Click Save.

Enable or Disable Automatic Lineage Generation

You can enable or disable the lineage for the BI Server source to be generated automatically during metadata extraction.

Connector Version 2.3.0 and NewerConnector Versions Prior to 2.2.9

From Alation version 2024.1.4 and connector version 2.3.0

Go to General Settings > Advanced settings of the Settings page of your BI Server source and enable or disable the Disable automatic lineage generation toggle.

Turn off the Disable automatic lineage generation toggle to skip the creation of automatic Lineage after extraction. When automatic Lineage generation is disabled, during extraction Alation does not calculate lineage data for this BI source.

Turn on this option when you want generate lineage automatically.

Configure Logging

To set the logging level for your BI source logs, perform these steps:

Connector Version 2.3.0 and NewerConnector Versions Prior to 2.2.9

From Alation version 2024.1.4 and connector version 2.3.0

1. On the Settings page of your BI Server source, go to General Settings > Connector logs.

2. Select a logging level for the connector logs and click Save.

   The available log levels are based on the Log4j framework.