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Always Encrypted in Power BI Report Server

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This article spells out Always Encrypted support in Power BI Report Server when using the data source types Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Azure SQL Database. For more information about Always Encrypted capabilities in SQL Server, see the Always Encrypted article.

Always Encrypted user isolation

At this time, Power BI Report Server doesn't restrict access to Always Encrypted columns in reports if a user has access to the report. Therefore if the server has been given access to the column encryption keys via the column master key, then users have access to all the columns for the reports they can access.

Always Encrypted column usage

Key storage strategies

Storage Supported
Windows Certificate Store Yes
Azure Key Vault No
Cryptography Next Generation (CNG) No

Certificate storage and access

The account that requires access to the certificate is the service account. The certificate should be stored in the local computer certificate store. For more information, see:

Column encryption strategy

In Power BI Report Server, the column encryption strategy can be deterministic or randomized. The following table spells out differences, depending on which strategy it uses.

Use Deterministic Randomized
Can be read as-is in the results of a query, for example, SELECT statements. Yes Yes
Can be used as a Group By entity within the query. Yes No
Can be used as an aggregate field, except for COUNT and DISTINCT. No, except for COUNT and DISTINCT No
Can be used as a report parameter Yes No

Read more about deterministic vs. randomized encryption.

Parameter usage

Parameter usage only applies to deterministic encryption.

Single-value parameter. You can use a single-value parameter against an Always Encrypted column.

Multi-value parameter. You can't use a multi-value parameter with more than one value against an Always Encrypted column.

Cascading parameters. You can use cascading parameters with Always Encrypted if all the following are true:

  • All Always Encrypted columns must be Always Encrypted with deterministic strategy.
  • All parameters used against Always Encrypted columns are single-value parameters.
  • All SQL comparisons use the Equals (=) operator.

Datatype support

SQL Data type Supports reading field Supports use as Group By element Supported aggregations (COUNT, DISTINCT, MAX, MIN, SUM, etc.) Supports filtering via equality using parameters Notes
int Yes Yes COUNT, DISTINCT Yes, as Integer
float Yes Yes COUNT, DISTINCT Yes, as Float
nvarchar Yes Yes COUNT, DISTINCT Yes, as Text Deterministic encryption must use a column collation with a binary2 sort order for character columns. See the SQL Server Always Encrypted article for details.
varchar Yes Yes COUNT, DISTINCT No
decimal Yes Yes COUNT, DISTINCT No
numeric Yes Yes COUNT, DISTINCT No
datetime Yes Yes COUNT, DISTINCT No
datetime2 Yes Yes COUNT, DISTINCT Yes, as Date/Time Supported if column has no millisecond precision (in other words, no datetime2(0))

Aggregation alternatives

Currently the only supported aggregations against deterministic Always Encrypted columns are those aggregations that directly use the Equals (=) operator. This SQL Server limitation is due to the nature of Always Encrypted columns. Users must aggregate within the report instead of in the database.

Always Encrypted in connection strings

You need to to enable Always Encrypted in the connection string for a SQL Server data source. Read more about enabling Always Encrypted in application queries.

Related content

More questions? Try asking the Power BI Community