Adding a Power BI Online (V2) Connection¶

Prerequisites¶

• A user with sufficient permissions is required to establish a connection with PowerBI Online.

• Zeenea's scanner traffic flows towards Power BI's instance and Azure must be open. Refer to the following:

  • https://login.microsoftonline.com
  • https://api.powerbi.com

Supported Versions¶

The Power BI Online (V2) connector is compatible with the product online version.

Installing the Plugin¶

You can download the Power BI Online (V2) plugin from Zeenea Connector Downloads.

For more information about how to install a plugin, see Installing and Configuring Connectors as a Plugin.

Declaring the Connection¶

Connectors are created and configured through a dedicated configuration file located in the /connections folder of the relevant scanner. The scanner frequently checks for any change and resynchronises automatically.

For more information about managing connections, see Managing Connections.

To establish a connection with a PowerBI Online instance, fill in the following parameters in the dedicated configuration file:

User Permissions¶

In order to collect metadata, the running user's permissions must allow them to access and read reports that need cataloging. A Service Principal account is needed to authenticate to MS Azure via a registered application using OAuth 2.0, an application ID, and a secret key.

To create a service principal in Azure, you will first need to register an application in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). This application registration will automatically create a corresponding service principal, which represents the application's identity in your Microsoft Entra tenant. You'll need to note the Application (client) ID and the Client Secret from the app registration, which will be needed for the Zeenea Scanner configuration. Finally, you'll need to grant the service principal the necessary roles and permissions to access the resources it needs.

Access to the PowerBI Admin API must be enabled for service principals using the Microsoft Fabric Admin Portal or Power BI Admin Portal and linked to a security group created using the Microsoft Entra Admin Center

To configure Admin API settings in Azure, you typically need to enable service principal authentication for admin APIs within the Admin portal, especially when using features like Microsoft Fabric. This involves signing into the Microsoft Fabric Admin Portal, navigating to tenant settings, and enabling the switch for service principal access to read-only admin APIs. You also need to assign a specific security group created during application creation to the Admin API settings.

Detailed PowerBI Setup¶

Microsoft Azure Portal : https://portal.azure.com/¶

1. Register an Application in Azure Entra ID (fka Active Directory):
   • Log in to the Azure portal.
   • Go to Azure Entra ID.
   • Select App registrations.
   • Click New registration.
   • Enter a name for your application.
   • Choose the appropriate supported account types.
   • Select the redirect URI.
     • Example: https://login.microsoftonline.com/20057ce9-1386-4770-8b04-e7824ef632be/oauth2/v2.0/token
   • Click Register.
2. Note the Application (client) ID:
   • Once the app registration is complete, note the Application (client) ID. You'll need this later to authenticate with the service principal.
3. Add a Client Secret:
   • You can add a client secret to provide a password-based credential for authentication.
   • Go to Certificates & secrets under the app registration.
   • Click New client secret.
   • Enter a description and expiry date, then click Add.

     Important: Copy the value of the client secret immediately after creation, as you won't be able to retrieve it later.

4. Grant Permissions:
   • Go to the Azure resource you want the service principal to access.
   • Select Access control (IAM).
   • Click Add role assignment.
   • Choose the appropriate privileged administrator role (for example, "Contributor").
   • Add members by selecting the service principal created by the registered application.
   • Click Save.

Microsoft Entra Admin Center: https://entra.microsoft.com/¶

Create Security Group using the Microsoft Entra Admin Center:

• Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center. Access the Entra admin center with appropriate permissions (at least a Groups Administrator role).
• Navigate to Groups: Go to Identity > Groups > ALL groups.
• Create a new group: Click on New group.
• Provide Group Details:
  • Group type: Select Security.
  • Group name: Enter a descriptive name for the group.
  • Description: (Optional) Add a description for the group.
  • Membership type: Choose Assigned for manually assigned members or Dynamic for automatically managed members based on rules.
• Choose Create: Select Create to finalize the group creation.
• Add previously created service principal to the security group as a direct member.

Microsoft Fabric Admin Portal or PowerBI Admin Portal : https://app.powerbi.com/admin-portal/tenantSettings?experience=power-bi¶

Configure Admin API Settings:

• Access the Admin Portal: Navigate to the Admin portal within your Azure subscription.
• Navigate to Tenant Settings:
  • Within the Admin portal, locate the Tenant Settings section.
• Locate Developer Settings:
  • Find the Developer settings section within the tenant settings.
• Enable Service Principal Authentication:
  • Enable the switch that allows service principals to call Fabric public APIs.
• Locate Admin API Settings:
  • Find the Admin API settings section within the tenant settings.
• Enable Service Principal Authentication:
  • Enable the switch that allows service principals to access read-only Admin APIs.
  • Enable the switch that allows service principals to access read-only Admin APIs used for updates
  • Enable the switch that allows for enhanced Admin API responses with detailed metadata.
    • Assign the security group created in the previous step to the Admin API settings enabled.

PowerBI Online Application : https://app.powerbi.com¶

Give permission to PowerBI Workspaces:

• Access PowerBI Online Application.
• Navigate to Workspaces section.
• Grant the Member permission set to the service principal for every Workspace that you want to catalog.

  Note: Do not grant the Member permission set to a security group; otherwise, it will not work correctly.

Rich Filters¶

Filter and extract only the contacts that do have a role matching the filter.

Example:¶

contact.role_filter = "role in ('Owner', 'Read')"

Read more: Filters

Universal Filters¶

Use universal filter language to filter and root items with the criteria bellow

Example:¶

filters = [
  {
    id = "accept_zeenea_workspace"
    action = ACCEPT
    catalog = "Zeenea Catalog"
    rules {
      workspace_name = "Zeenea"
    }
  },
  {
    id = "default_reject"
    action = REJECT
  }
]

Read more: Universal Filters

Data Extraction¶

To extract information, the connector runs successively the following API requests:

• GET https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/admin/workspaces/modified:
  • Response: To get the workspaces list excluding personal workspaces.
• POST https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/admin/workspaces/getInfo:
  • Parameter: Workspaces list (100 workspaces limit)
  • Response: Scan identifier
• GET https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/admin/workspaces/scanStatus/:
  • Parameter: Scan identifier
  • Response: Scan status: NOT_STARTED, RUNNING, SUCCEEDED
• GET https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/admin/workspaces/scanResult/:
  • Parameter: Scan identifier
  • Response: Object with all the metadata of report from scanned workspaces
• GET https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/admin/apps:
  • Response: Object with all the apps in the organization
• GET https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/<workspace_id>/reports/<report_id>/pages:
  • Parameters: Workspace ID and Report ID
  • Response: Object with all the pages within the specified report from the specified workspace
• GET https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/<workspace_id>/reports/<report_id>/export:
  • Parameters: Workspace ID and Report ID
  • Response: PBIX file of the specified report from the specified workspace

Collected Metadata¶

Inventory¶

Collects the list of reports accessible by the user.

Lineage¶

The Power BI Online (V2) connector is able to retrieve the lineage between datasets that have been imported to the catalog. Datasets from other connections must have been previously imported to the catalog to be linked to the Power BI Online (V2) dataset through a new Data Process object. This feature is available for the following systems and, for it to work, an additional parameter is needed in the configuration file of the source system connection as configured in the Power BI Online (V2) connection configuration panel. For example, if the Power BI dataset comes from a SQL Server table, then a new alias parameter must be added in the SQL Server connection configuration file.

The following table summarizes the possible values of the alias parameter to be completed in the data source configuration file.

Visualization¶

A visualization object is a Power BI report.

• Name
• Source Description
• Contacts

• Technical Data:

  • Report WebURL: Link to the report
  • Report Type
  • Workspace Name
  • Application: URL to the PowerBI application which this report is attached
  • Source Server Name
  • Created By
  • Creation Date
  • Modified By
  • Modified Date
  • Report's page

Dataset¶

A dataset is a table inside a PowerBI semantic model.

• Name
• Source Description

• Technical Data:

  • PowerBI Dataset: Name of the PowerBI dataset
  • Workspace: Link to PowerBI workspace
  • Semantic Model: Link to PowerBI semantic model
  • Power Query

Field¶

Dataset field or measure.

• Name
• Source Description
• Type
• Can be null: Not supported. Default value false.
• Multivalued: Not supported. Default value false.
• Primary Key: Not supported. Default value false.

• Technical Data:

  • Technical Name
  • Native type
  • Type
  • Expression

Data Process¶

To represent the data flow from an external source, a Zeenea Data Process will be created for each Power BI Online Dataset.

• Name: IMPORT dataset_name

Object Identification Keys¶

Each object in the catalog is associated with a unique identifier key. When the object is imported from an external system, the key is generated and provided by the connector.

For more information about identifier keys, see Identification Keys.