Connect Power BI to Azure Databricks

Microsoft Power BI is a business analytics service that provides interactive visualizations with self-service business intelligence capabilities, enabling end users to create reports and dashboards by themselves without having to depend on information technology staff or database administrators.

When you use Azure Databricks as a data source with Power BI, you can bring the advantages of Azure Databricks performance and technology beyond data scientists and data engineers to all business users.

You can connect Power BI Desktop to your Azure Databricks clusters and Databricks SQL warehouses. You can also publish Power BI reports to the Power BI service and enable users to access the underlying Azure Databricks data using single sign-on (SSO), passing along the same Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) credentials they use to access the report.

Requirements

  • Power BI Desktop 2.85.681.0 or above. Download the latest version. To use data managed by Unity Catalog with Power BI, you must use Power BI Desktop 2.98.683.0 or above (October 2021 release).

    Note

    Power BI Desktop requires Windows. An alternative for other operating systems is to run Power BI Desktop on a physical host or a Windows-based virtual machine and then connect to it from your operating system.

    If you use a version of Power BI Desktop below 2.85.681.0, you also need to install the Databricks ODBC driver in the same environment as Power BI Desktop.

  • An Azure Databricks personal access token or your Microsoft Entra ID account credentials.

    Note

    As a security best practice when you authenticate with personal access tokens, Databricks recommends that you use personal access tokens belonging to service principals instead of workspace users. To create tokens for service principals, see Manage tokens for a service principal.

  • An Azure Databricks cluster or Databricks SQL warehouse.

Connect Power BI Desktop to Azure Databricks using Partner Connect

You can use Partner Connect to connect to a cluster or SQL warehouse from Power BI Desktop in just a few clicks.

  1. Make sure your Azure Databricks account, workspace, and the signed-in user meet the requirements for Partner Connect.

  2. In the sidebar, click Partner Connect button Partner Connect.

  3. Click the Power BI tile.

  4. In the Connect to partner dialog, for Compute, choose the name of the Azure Databricks compute resource that you want to connect.

  5. Choose Download connection file.

  6. Open the downloaded connection file, which starts Power BI Desktop.

  7. In Power BI Desktop, enter your authentication credentials:

    • Personal Access Token: Enter your Azure Databricks personal access token.
    • Microsoft Entra ID: Click Sign in and then follow the on-screen instructions.
    • Username / Password: Not applicable.
  8. Click Connect.

  9. Select the Azure Databricks data to query from the Power BI Navigator.

    Power BI Navigator

Connect Power BI Desktop to Azure Databricks manually

Follow these instructions, depending on your chosen authentication method, to connect to a cluster or SQL warehouse with Power BI Desktop. Databricks SQL warehouses are recommended when using Power BI in DirectQuery mode.

Note

To connect faster with Power BI Desktop, use Partner Connect.

  1. Get the Server Hostname and HTTP Path.

  2. Start Power BI Desktop.

  3. Click Get data or File > Get data.

  4. Click Get data to get started.

  5. Search for Databricks, then click the connector:

    • Azure Databricks
  6. Click Connect.

  7. Enter the Server Hostname and HTTP Path.

  8. Select your Data Connectivity mode. For information about the difference between Import and DirectQuery, see Use DirectQuery in Power BI Desktop.

  9. Click OK.

  10. Click your authentication method:

    • Personal Access Token: Enter your Azure Databricks personal access token.
    • Microsoft Entra ID: Click Sign in and then follow the on-screen instructions.
    • Username / Password: Not applicable.
  11. Click Connect.

  12. Select the Azure Databricks data to query from the Power BI Navigator. If Unity Catalog is enabled for your workspace, select a catalog before you select a schema and a table.

    Power BI Navigator

Using a custom SQL query

The Databricks connector provides the Databricks.Query data source that allows a user to provide a custom SQL query.

  1. Follow the steps described in Connect with Power BI Desktop to create a connection, using Import as the data connectivity mode.

  2. In the Navigator, right click the top-most item containing the selected host name and HTTP path and click Transform Data to open the Power Query Editor.

    Click Transform Data in the Navigator

  3. In the function bar, replace the function name Databricks.Catalogs with Databricks.Query and apply the change. This creates a Power Query function that takes a SQL query as parameter.

  4. Enter the desired SQL query in the parameter field and click Invoke. This executes the query and a new table is created with the query results as its contents.

Access Azure Databricks data source using the Power BI service

When you publish a report to the Power BI service, you connect to Azure Databricks using a personal access token. In the Power BI service, you can also enable single sign on (SSO) so that users can access reports built using DirectQuery storage mode by passing their Microsoft Entra ID credentials to Azure Databricks.

  1. Publish your Power BI report from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI service.

  2. Enable single sign on (SSO) access to the report and underlying data source.

    1. Go to the underlying Azure Databricks dataset for the report in the Power BI service, expand Data source credentials, and click Edit credentials.
    2. On the configuration dialog, select Report viewers can only access this data source with their own Power BI identities using Direct Query and click Sign in.

    Enable SSO for Databricks data access

    With this option selected, access to the data source is handled using DirectQuery and managed using the Microsoft Entra ID identity of the user who is accessing the report. If you don’t select this option, only you, as the user who published the report, have access to the Azure Databricks data source.

Automated HTTP proxy detection

Power BI Desktop version 2.104.941.0 and above (May 2022 release) has built-in support for detecting Windows system-wide HTTP proxy configuration. Download the latest version.

Power BI Desktop can automatically detect and use your Windows system-wide HTTP proxy configuration.

If the proxy server does not provide a CRL distribution point (CDP), Power BI might show the following error message:

Details: "ODBC: ERROR [HY000] [Microsoft][DriverSupport] (1200)
-The revocation status of the certificate or one of the certificates in the certificate chain is unknown."

To fix this error, complete the following steps:

  1. Create the file C:\Program Files\Microsoft Power BI Desktop\bin\ODBC Drivers\Simba Spark ODBC Driver\microsoft.sparkodbc.ini if it does not exist.

  2. Add the following config to your microsoft.sparkodbc.ini file:

    [Driver]
    CheckCertRevocation=0
    

Power BI Delta Sharing connector

The Power BI Delta Sharing connector allows users to discover, analyze, and visualize datasets shared with them through the Delta Sharing open protocol. The protocol enables secure exchange of datasets across products and platforms by leveraging REST and cloud storage.

For connection instructions, see Power BI: Read shared data.

Limitations

  • The Azure Databricks connector supports web proxy. However, automatic proxy settings defined in .pac files aren’t supported.
  • In the Azure Databricks connector, the Databricks.Query data source is not supported in combination with DirectQuery mode.
  • The data that the Delta Sharing connector loads must fit into the memory of your machine. To ensure this, the connector limits the number of imported rows to the Row Limit that was set earlier.

Additional resources

Support