Enable native Power BI integration with Databricks Metric View

[dhaneswara]

Today, Power BI semantic models (datasets/DAX) work well when Power BI is the only BI tool. However, many organizations use Databricks as their lakehouse and need consistent, governed metrics across multiple BI tools, ML pipelines, and APIs. When the semantic layer lives only in Power BI:

• Logic is duplicated across datasets and tools

• Governance/security (RLS/CLS, masking) is fragmented

• Schema changes in Databricks break reports

• ML/AI pipelines cannot reuse business logic from Power BI models

Proposal: Enable native Power BI integration with Databricks Metric View

[GlucabFassiData]

AZURE Databricks + POWER BI was my choice for our company with 150 potential users, we will not change Databricks, we are exploring AI/BI for all the self-help and we are unsure about managed dashboard between POWER BI or switch to Tableau. That was an unfortunate move to digest and our fear is that it can be only the first Microsoft move to force us into Fabric. The problem is not the removal of the functionality, but not give/prospect an alternative to use a first-party solution fully in the Microsoft ecosystem.

[AMF69]

Really questioning if we should adopt Databricks reporting over PowerBi due to the lack of this functionality to persist unity catalog permissions into power BI semantic models / (non direct query) PowerBi reporting. This would be a game changer and can only benefit.

[RoundRobin]

I need this feature to integrate Power BI.

[chakri400]

Joined as a member specifically to upvote this. Please bring this back

[Croc]

Why was it removed in the first place? Is it a bad pattern? Is it hard to support? No customer interest? There no any note, just dropped silently.

[union_all_]

I also joined as a member specifically to upvote this. We need this

[rdjs]

As far as I understood, MS pulled it. There’s no clarity if and when the functionality will return. The battle for semantics is real as it is the path to lock-in. It’s annoying, but it’s how things go sadly. Hopefully the open semantic interchange will bring some standardization and openness (or adapters) Im a bit skeptical though. Maybe try out that Semantic Bridge from Tabular Editor.

[Loev]

"As far as I understood, MS pulled it. There’s no clarity if and when the functionality will return. The battle for semantics is real as it is the path to lock-in. It’s annoying, but it’s how things go sadly. Hopefully the open semantic interchange will bring some standardization and openness (or adapters) Im a bit skeptical though. Maybe try out that Semantic Bridge from Tabular Editor."

An even better solution than open semantic interchange was to extend the SQL standard as outlined here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.00251 and, as an example, already implemented in Apache Calcite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo1uwJ3qHwE

[rdjs]

Cool! I wasn’t aware of that! @Loev. Just saw this by the way: https://www.reddit.com/r/databricks/s/U2OwOeRA7m Seems quite ironic it is posted on the Microsoft Learn resources.

[Loev]

Nice - if this works, it just shows that the moat isn't as wide as MS might think - which is why a native integration would just be better for consumers overall (this Fabric Idea ticket).