Purview is a data governance service from Microsoft. Using Purview with Power BI, you will be able to view lineage of your data assets end-to-end, as well as troubleshoot a data pipeline that feeds Power BI datasets and reports. This article elaborates on the aspects of Power BI assets when scanned in Purview.
Note: Unlike other data sources, users can only use managed identity to connect to Power BI. In order to set up Power BI, user will need to have Power BI Admin rights. See this tutorial for setting up Purview's permission to scan Power BI tenant. Update Aug 2022 It is possible to use delegated authority to access the PowerBI tenant, in certain scenarios (typically no public access and private endpoints). Summary and example scenario Docs
Please see here for instruction on how to register Power BI as a data source in Purview and here for how to scan Power BI in Purview.
Purview scans the entire Power BI tenant (scanning only parts of the tenant is not possible currently), below artefacts are scanned.
- Capacity
- Workspaces
- Dataflow
- Dataset
- Report
- Dashboard
Users can filter search results by Power BI Capacity Type, Workspace Name and Artefact Type.
When Browsing Power BI assets, all workspaces scanned will be listed.
When clicking into a workspace, all scanned assets and their types will be listed
For assets such as workspace, datasets, dataflows, reports and dashboards, overview tab gives general information about the assets. These general information includes: description, classification, fully qualified name, hierarchy and glossary terms. Hierarchy is capacity/workspace/datasets(report, dataflow, dashboard). Users have the option to open assets in Power BI.
The properties tab outlines properties for the assets. For dataset, storage mode is listed under ContentProviderType. Other properties listed include author, modifier, creation date, qualified name.
Scheme of the dataset is available in the schema tab, which is broken down to tables and columns within a dataset.
Lineage is available in Power BI with data sources that feed into Power BI providing an End-to-End view of data lineage. The Lineage in Power BI is available as Data Source -> Dataflow (if applicable) -> Dataset -> Report -> Dashboard. From lineage view, users will be able to trouble shoot the previous processing steps if a Power BI reports is not working.
In contacts tab, experts and owners can be added from Azure Active Directory, so that users can contact them regarding queries on those assets.
Users can see the related assets in the related tab.
- Currently scan is for the entire Power BI tenant, scanning only certain workspaces or capacity is not supported
- Currently only one scan is allowed for Power BI, as opposed to in other data sources different scans can be set up with different rulesets. Users can re-run the same scan multiple times.
- Scans for Power BI can be full scan or incremental scan
- Power BI Apps are not scanned currently.
- Scanning Deployment pipeline in Power BI is not supported currently