Notebook Activity Connection Dropdown Not Loading in Data Pipeline

[RajeshFabric]

We are experiencing an issue in Microsoft Fabric Data Pipelines where the Connection dropdown inside the Notebook activity does not populate with any available connections. The workspace contains valid connections under Manage Connections, but none of them appear in the activity’s selection list. Using the Refresh option does not resolve the issue, and the UI remains stuck on “Select…”.

Due to this, we are unable to assign connections to new or existing Notebook pipeline activities. Our Schedules and CI/CD automation is also impacted because connection mapping cannot be completed.

[RajeshFabric]

Thank you @svenchio  @Anusha66 , got it now.

[svenchio · Accepted solution]

Hi @RajeshFabric first, let's first understand that this Connection dropdown lets you choose an authentication method for executing the notebook within the activity, the idea is for you to use a connection configured with a Service Principal (SPN) to avoids reliance on user credentials, in fact, if you try to create a valid connection for the notebook to use, you'll seomething like this ... 

But this feature, as indicated by @Anusha66  is not fully rolled-out and in fact, I tried to create a new connection with a valid SPN and got an error, so, this feature is not there yet, you can see from the number of people posting on this issues with it! 

The good news is ... IT IS OPTIONAL! You don't have to select a connection to move forward with a Notebook activity, just select the Workspace and Notebook and LEAVE BLANK THE CONNECTION, and yes, you might have to update your notebooks to "manually push" this latest state of your notebooks... perhaps not ideal, but I'll do the trick! Remember that leaving the Connection field blank, Fabric defaults to using your current user identity (delegated authentication), meaning:

• The notebook runs under the credentials of the user who triggers the pipeline (or the user who scheduled it).
• It relies on your interactive sign-in token, so if the pipeline is scheduled or part of CI/CD, it can fail when the token expires or if the user account is disabled.
• No service principal or workspace identity is used unless explicitly selected.

There's nothing at the moment you can do for the SPN on notebook, there's been a lot of people asking for this feature and MSFT is working on it, but I'll take time for a fully roll-out, stay tune! 

Hope this information has been useful, I would appreciate a thumb's up and mark this as a solution 😁🤞 

[Anusha66]

The documentation and blog posts have already been updated, but the actual “Connection” feature in Notebook activities hasn’t fully rolled out to all workspaces yet. 

Here’s what we’ve observed so far:

• Workspace-level rollout:
  The option only appeared after certain workspaces received the latest backend update. Older workspaces still don’t show the dropdown.

• New workspaces get it first:
  Creating a brand-new workspace made the Connection dropdown appear for several users, which confirms that the rollout is happening at the workspace level, not the entire tenant.

• Region-based delays:
  Some regions receive Fabric updates later than others, so you may simply be in a region where the feature hasn’t arrived yet.

• No manual setting or configuration:
  There is no toggle, preview flag, or admin setting to enable it. It becomes available only after Microsoft finishes pushing the update.

Once the backend update reaches your workspace, the Connection dropdown will start working automatically.