How to attach image file from Lakehouse to PowerBI

[dbradley_CCL]

We are building some reports in PowerBI and require the use of image attachments.

Uploading the images to the lake house is easy, but we cannot find a way to add those files to the PowerBI report.

The given URLs do not work.

When I try to load in a browser I get the follow message:

{"error":{"code":"Unauthorized","message":"Authentication Failed with Bearer token is not present in the request"}}

What is the procedure or is there an alternate method?

[v-mdharahman · Accepted solution]

Hi @dbradley_CCL,

Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum.

It looks like trying to use image attachments stored in the Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse within a Power BI report. This issue happens because when adding an image using a URL in Power BI maybe in a table, matrix, or card visualization, it expects a publicly accessible URL. Since Lakehouse URLs require authentication, they do not work.

Since Power BI does not support authenticated URLs for images, you can store images in a publicly accessible  location like Azure Blob storage with public access. You can upload your images to Azure Blob Storage and set the container’s access level to public read access for blobs only. Now generate a URL for each image and store the URLs in your dataset and set the column’s data category to Image URL in Power BI. For small images we can use Base64 encoding where we convert image to Base64 and store in the PowerBI dataset as PowerBI supports displaying Base64-encoded images in table and matrix visuals.

Also go through the below link to get an idea of how to add images in powerbi and what all considerations we must take.

Display images in a table, matrix, or slicer in a report - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know.  

Best Regards,
Hammad.
Community Support Team

If this post helps then please mark it as a solution, so that other members find it more quickly.

Thank you.

[dbradley_CCL]

The option to set the column to Image URL is not there. I'm not sure if we have a different version of Power BI or if theres a trick to setting it.

[v-mdharahman · Accepted solution]

Hi @dbradley_CCL,

Thanks for the reply. If the “Image URL” option is missing in Power BI column must Be of data type “Text”. The Data Category setting which includes “Image URL” is only available for columns with the Text data type. 

To verify and change go to Data View (left pane with the table icon) then select the column. On the column tools ribbon, check if the data type is set to Text, If it’s not, change it to Text.

Once the column is Text set the Data Category. Stay in Data View with the column selected, go to the column tools tab. Under “Data Category”, you should now see “Image URL” in the dropdown select Image URL.

Note: This option only appears in Data view or Model view not in Report view.

Also note that only certain visuals support displaying image URLs or Base64 images like Table, Matrix visuals.

Best Regards,

Hammad.

[v-mdharahman · Accepted solution]

Hi @dbradley_CCL,

Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum.

It looks like trying to use image attachments stored in the Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse within a Power BI report. This issue happens because when adding an image using a URL in Power BI maybe in a table, matrix, or card visualization, it expects a publicly accessible URL. Since Lakehouse URLs require authentication, they do not work.

Since Power BI does not support authenticated URLs for images, you can store images in a publicly accessible  location like Azure Blob storage with public access. You can upload your images to Azure Blob Storage and set the container’s access level to public read access for blobs only. Now generate a URL for each image and store the URLs in your dataset and set the column’s data category to Image URL in Power BI. For small images we can use Base64 encoding where we convert image to Base64 and store in the PowerBI dataset as PowerBI supports displaying Base64-encoded images in table and matrix visuals.

Also go through the below link to get an idea of how to add images in powerbi and what all considerations we must take.

Display images in a table, matrix, or slicer in a report - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know.  

Best Regards,
Hammad.
Community Support Team

If this post helps then please mark it as a solution, so that other members find it more quickly.

Thank you.

[v-mdharahman]

Hi @dbradley_CCL,

As we haven’t heard back from you, so just following up to our previous message. I'd like to confirm if you've successfully resolved this issue or if you need further help.

If yes, you are welcome to share your workaround and mark it as a solution so that other users can benefit as well. If you find a reply particularly helpful to you, you can also mark it as a solution.

If you still have any questions or need more support, please feel free to let us know. We are more than happy to continue to help you.
Thank you for your patience and look forward to hearing from you.

[v-mdharahman]

Hi @dbradley_CCL,

I wanted to check if you had the opportunity to review the information provided. Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions. If my response has addressed your query, please accept it as a solution so that other community members can find it easily.

Thank you.

[v-mdharahman]

Hi @dbradley_CCL,

May I ask if you have resolved this issue? If so, please mark the helpful reply and accept it as the solution. This will be helpful for other community members who have similar problems to solve it faster.

Thank you.