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Enrich Power BI OLS datasets

TL;DR

Learn how to prepare BIM files in S3 and enable Power BI OLS dataset enrichment in the Microsoft Power BI crawler to recover tables and columns hidden by Object Level Security and restore upstream lineage to your data warehouse.

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Atlan recovers Power BI tables and columns hidden by Object Level Security and restores their upstream lineage to your data warehouse.

The Power BI Admin APIs used by Atlan's crawler don't return table metadata when Object Level Security (OLS) is applied to a semantic model, so those assets are missing in Atlan and lineage is broken. When you enable OLS dataset enrichment, the crawler reads each semantic model's BIM file from an Amazon S3 bucket and uses it to create the missing assets and lineage.

Part of the Power BI crawler

OLS dataset enrichment runs as part of the Microsoft Power BI crawl, under Advanced Configuration. It was previously delivered as a separate PBI OLS Dataset Enricher app. You no longer install or schedule a separate workflow.

This guide walks you through preparing the BIM file with Tabular Editor, uploading it to S3, and enabling enrichment on your Power BI crawler.

Prerequisites​

Before you begin, make sure you have:

  • A Microsoft Power BI connection set up and crawled in Atlan.
  • The data warehouse connection (for example, Snowflake, BigQuery) crawled in Atlan so that upstream assets are available for lineage.
  • Tabular Editor installed and accessible from the machine where you run the extraction script.
  • A Service Principal authorized to authenticate Tabular Editor with the Power BI workspace and semantic model.
  • A Premium Capacity or Fabric Workspace.
  • An AWS S3 bucket with access configured so that a non-AWS application can read objects. For setup instructions, see:

Prepare BIM file​

Before running the crawler, extract the BIM file from the Power BI semantic model (also called a PBI dataset) and upload it to your S3 bucket. The crawler reads the BIM file from S3 and uses it to create assets and lineage in Atlan.

  1. Use Tabular Editor to connect to the Power BI workspace and semantic model (using the Service Principal).

  2. Run a script to export the semantic model as a BIM file.

  3. Upload the BIM file to your S3 bucket, under the prefix you configure on the crawler (for example, POWERBI/).

For authentication patterns and S3 setup, see Object storage for apps.

Enable enrichment​

Once your BIM files are available in S3, enable enrichment on the Power BI crawler.

  1. Set up the Microsoft Power BI crawler, or edit your existing Power BI workflow.

  2. In Advanced Configuration, set Enable Power BI OLS Dataset Enrichment to True.

  3. Configure how the crawler reaches your BIM files:

    • BIM File Bucket: name of the S3 bucket holding the BIM files.
    • BIM File Bucket Region: AWS region of that bucket, for example eu-west-2.
    • BIM File Prefix: path within the bucket where the BIM files are uploaded, for example POWERBI/.
    • BIM Bucket Role ARN: ARN of the IAM role Atlan assumes to read the bucket, for example arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/roleName. Create the role with a trust policy allowing Atlan's node instance role to assume it. Raise a support ticket to get the Node Instance Role ARN, then create the role. Leave this blank if the bucket is already readable by Atlan's node instance role.

  4. In Source Connections, select the data warehouse connections to build lineage against, so that enrichment doesn't create duplicate lineage to other connections holding the same metadata.

  5. Save and run the crawler to create the missing tables, columns, and lineage.

Verify lineage​

After the crawl finishes, validate that assets and lineage have been created as expected.

  1. From the left navigation, click Assets.

  2. Search for a Power BI dataset that was in scope and open its asset profile.

  3. Click the Lineage tab and confirm that:

    • The missing Power BI tables and columns now appear.
    • Upstream lineage to the data warehouse tables and columns is present.
    • Downstream lineage from tables to the parent dataset is present.

  4. Repeat for a few datasets to confirm coverage matches your expectations.

If you need to adjust which semantic models are enriched, update the BIM files in S3 or the crawler configuration and run the crawler again.

Need help?​

If you have any issues while configuring or running enrichment, contact Atlan support.

See also​