Announcing Power BI integration with Databricks Partner Connect

Power BI Desktop customers can now visualize data in Delta Lake using Databricks with just a couple of clicks. In the past, connecting to Databricks from Power BI Desktop required the end user to perform a lot of manual configuration. Power BI Desktop integration with Databricks Partner Connect makes it simple to connect to Delta Lake so you can start doing analytics and sharing insights with your business.

Databricks Partner Connect is a one-stop portal for customers to quickly and easily discover a broad set of certified data, analytics, and AI tools and easily integrate them with Databricks. Integration with Microsoft Power BI Desktop is included at launch, and many more integrations are coming in the months ahead.

Connecting Power BI Desktop to Databricks used to require a lot of complex configuration. With Partner Connect, you can just download a connection file that contains all the information you need to connect to Databricks, removing the need for complex configuration.

Power BI Desktop integration with Partner Connect helps make self-service BI a reality by making it easy for end users to create their own dashboards and get the freedom to analyze, publish and share insights with others.

 

How does it work?

To get started, click on the Power BI icon in Partner Connect (in the sidebar), select a compute endpoint, and download the Power BI data source file. When you open the file on a computer with Power BI Desktop installed, you will be prompted to enter your credentials and will be able to connect to the chosen compute endpoint. Once connected, you can query and visualize data at lightning speed and share insights with your team.

1. From the Partner Connect tab, click on the Power BI icon.
2. Choose a compute endpoint.
3. Download and open the connection file using Power BI Desktop 2.85.681.0 or above.
4. Sign in using Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) credentials, Personal Access Token (PAT), or the Databricks workspace username and password. DirectQuery enables direct access to data in Databricks, providing fresh data while enforcing Delta Lake security controls so there is no need to duplicate security controls in Power BI.
5. Navigate tables and views to start visualizing your data and performing analytics.

Partner Connect is now available to Databricks customers at no additional cost.