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Add AAD Service Principal as a method of authentication

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Jourdan on 14 Jul 2016 04:28:16

We have a number of custom applications that support authentication via Azure Active Directory. We would prefer to use Service Principals instead of full blown user accounts to authenticate.

Another scenario would be connecting to the Microsoft Graph as a Service Principal. We could grant the Service Principal read access to parts of the directory we want and then use that Client ID and Secret to authenticate against MS Graph. It would be great to use this data in Power BI.

To implement this, it would require Power BI to connect to the authentication endpoint (like https://login.windows.net) and request a bearer token to use against the data endpoint.

Comments (7)
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JP Barnard on 31 Mar 2023 06:25:13

RE: Add AAD Service Principal as a method of authentication

We need Service Principal authentication support for the new Power BI preview feature DirectQuery for Power BI AS Datasets, which allows layering datasets (one dataset based upon another) to reduce duplication and improve re-usability of datasets.

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Ernesto Rodriguez Anchia on 14 Nov 2022 12:44:21

RE: Add AAD Service Principal as a method of authentication

This will be useful so that when one of our teammates leave the refreshing cycle won't get interrupted and will avoid us from going back and taking over the dataset.

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Steven Fayers on 06 Jul 2020 00:17:49

RE: Add AAD Service Principal as a method of authentication

Would be ideal to have this in Power BI desktop as well.

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Daniel Mudie on 05 Jul 2020 23:41:58

RE: Add AAD Service Principal as a method of authentication

This is in preview now, right?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/embed-service-principal

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Daniel Zhang on 05 Jul 2020 23:36:00

RE: Add AAD Service Principal as a method of authentication

When Service Principals support available for most of the Azure Services, this is a must.

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Ben Hatton UNSW on 05 Jul 2020 23:34:14

RE: Add AAD Service Principal as a method of authentication

Please! Having to create dummy users for this purpose seems to be a step backwards and complicates licence management.

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akuzhan on 05 Jul 2020 23:27:02

RE: Add AAD Service Principal as a method of authentication

This should not be even an option, this is a must feature. I hope you add this feature as quick as possible.