About the Power BI Service collector
Use this collector to harvest metadata from Power BI. Users can then:
Discover Power BI reports and dashboards across your enterprise’s Power BI workspaces.
Perform impact analysis to understand how changes to upstream data sources impact Power BI reports.
Important things to note:
This collector only harvests from the Power BI Service. It does not harvest Power BI desktop (pbix) files unless these files are uploaded to Power BI cloud service.
This collector does not harvest from Power BI Report Server. There is a separate collector available for Power BI Report Server.
Important
The Power BI Service collector can be run in the Cloud or on-premise using Docker or Jar files.
Note
The latest version of the Collector is 2.235. To view the release notes for this version and all previous versions, please go here.
What is cataloged
The collector catalogs the following information.
Object | Information collected |
|---|---|
Workspaces | Title, Description |
Apps | Title, Description |
Power BI Measures | Title, Description, Is hidden, Expression |
Reports | Title, Reports type, External URL, Embed URL, Preview Image |
Report Pages | Title Note: Report pages within Apps cannot be cataloged when using Service Principal authentication due to restrictions in the Power BI APIs. |
Dashboards | Title, External URL, Embed URL |
Dashboard tiles | Title, Embed URL |
Data Sources | Title, Data source type |
Datasets | Title, External URL, Description |
Dataflows | Title, Last modified, Description |
Power BI Tables (Datasets and Dataflows) | Title, Is hidden, Description, Source expression |
Power BI Columns | Title, Data type, Column type, Is hidden, Expression |
Tabular file | File path, File name |
File directory | Directory path |
Database | Title, Type, Identifier, Server, Port |
Database Schema | Title |
Database Table | Title |
Database Column | Title, Type |
Table | Title, Description |
Column | Title, Type |
Relationships between objects
By default, the data.world catalog will include catalog pages for the resource types below. Each catalog page will have a relationship to other related resource types. Note that the catalog presentation and relationships are fully configurable, so these will list the default configuration.
Resource page | Relationship |
|---|---|
App | Report, Dashboard, Workspace |
Power BI Column | Power BI Table |
Data source | Dataset, Dataflow, Connection Details (kind and path), Tabular Data source (Database, Tabular File) |
Tile | Dashboard, Report |
Dashboard | Tile, Workspace |
Report | Tile, Workspace, Report pages, Dataset, Report |
Report Pages | Report |
Dataset | Tile, Workspace, Report, Table, Data source, Dataset |
Workspace | Report, Dataset, Dataflow, Dashboard, App |
Dataflow | Workspace, Table, Data source, Dataflow |
Power BI Table | Dataset, Dataflow, Power BI Column, Power BI Measure |
Power BI Measure | Power BI Table |
Tabular Data source (Database, Tabular File) | Data source |
Lineage for Power BI
The following lineage information is collected by the Power BI collector.
Object | Lineage available |
|---|---|
Report | Associated Dataset, Associated workspace report |
Dashboard Tile | Associated Dataset |
Dataset | Associated Dataflow, Dashboard Tile, Report, and Dataset |
Dataflow | Associated Column, Dataset, and Dataflow |
Power BI Column | Associated columns that the column sources its data from or calculates its values from. Notes:
|
Power BI table | Associated tables that the table sources its data from Note: The collector uses Power BI expressions returned by the APIs to parse the lineage to the source columns/tables. |
Power BI Measure | Associated columns that the measure sources it data from |
Supported cross-system lineage
The currently supported data sources for cross-system lineage are:
Oracle
Denodo
Snowflake
SQL Server
PostgreSQL
Redshift
Databricks (Lineage for Power BI queries to databricks is not supported)
CSV documents
Important
While other data sources are not formally supported, running the collector for those sources may still enable you to view cross-system lineage between Power BI and these sources.
Supported transformations and expressions for harvesting lineage metadata
Note
Any table operations or transformations not listed in the following table as supported or unsupported are ignored.
This section captures supported transformations, source expressions, calculated columns, and measure expressions when harvesting lineage metadata.
Category | Supported/Unsupported objects |
|---|---|
Supported dataset configurations |
|
Csv.Document, Excel.Workbook, File.Contents, Folder.Contents, Folder.Files, Json.Document, Odbc.DataSource, Odbc.InferOptions, Odbc.Query, Xml.Document, Web.Contents, Web.Headers, Web.BrowserContents, AmazonRedshift.Database, Sql.Database, Sql.Databases, Snowflake.Databases, PostgreSQL.Database, Databricks.Catalogs, Oracle.Database, Denodo.Contents | |
Table.AddColumn, Table.AddIndexColumn, Table.RenameColumns, Table.NestedJoin, Table.ExpandTableColumn, Table.SplitColumn | |
Unsupported table operations | Note: Contact data.world support if you have any expressions that use the following unsupported table operations. Table.DuplicateColumn, Table.Pivot, Table.PromoteHeaders, Table.DemoteHeaders, Table.PrefixColumns, Table.TransformColumnNames, Table.Unpivot, Table.UnpivotOtherColumns, Table.AddFuzzyClusterColumn, Table.AddJoinColumn, Table.AggregateTableColumn, Table.Combine, Table.CombineColumns, Table.CombineColumnsToRecord, Table.ExpandRecordColumn, Table.Join, Table.Transpose |
Supported dataflow functions |
|
| |
Supported calculated columns | Lineage from calculated expressions containing columns with and without table references, Columns or tables with alphanumeric characters, Spaces, Hyphens, and Underscore are supported |
Supported measures | Lineage from measure expressions containing columns or tables with alphanumeric characters, Spaces, Hyphens, Underscore, Surrounding quotes are supported |
Version supported
The collector supports Power BI Cloud API v 1.0.
Authentication supported
There are two separate ways to authenticate to Power BI:
Service principal
User and password
The collector will harvest metadata for all Power BI apps and workspaces to which the supplied account has access.