Power BI embedding with Fabric Direct Lake models

[vidhyan]

Hello,

I attempted to embed Power BI report that consumes a Semantic Model defined on top of a Lakehouse in fabric that uses Direct Lake storage mode. I receive the following error when trying to obtain an embed token using Microsoft.PowerBI.Api.PowerBIClient.EmbedToken.GenerateToken

Status: BadRequest (400)
Response: {"error":{"code":"InvalidRequest","message":"Embedding a DirectLake report is not supported"}}

The following URL states "Embedded scenarios that rely on embedded entities aren't supported yet." under "Known issues and limitations". What does this statement mean? 
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/get-started/direct-lake-overview#known-issues-and-limitatio...

What is the plan for supporting embedding of Direct Lake reports?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/enterprise/directlake-overview

Thanks in advance for your input.

[Anonymous]

Hi  @vidhyan ,

Embedding a DirectLake report is not supported for now.As you can see in the official documentation, this feature is not currently supported in this product, which is a product design issue.
The product team is still working on optimizing it. If you would like to suggest feature improvements, you may vote the idea and comment here to improve this feature. It is the right place for customers provide feedback about Microsoft Office products . What’s more, if a feedback is high voted there by other customers, it will be promising that Microsoft Product Team will take it into consideration when designing the next version in the future.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Caitlyn

[Gabry]

Hello @Anonymous ,

I'm a bit confused. Is this feature available now? Specifically, is it possible to embed a report that uses a Direct Lake semantic model?

I'm asking because you mentioned earlier that it wasn't possible, but I noticed that the status has changed to "DELIVERED." Could you clarify what that means?

Thanks

[dlopesc04]

Hello @v-xiaoyan-msft ,

I'm also a bit confused by this, if it is delivered are we already able to use it? If not, the provided link for an idea just lands on the main page of the fabric ideas section. I can't seem to find an Idea there referring to this issue in particular.

Can you clarify if there is a plan for supporting embedding of Direct Lake reports?

[Gabry]

Hi @dlopesc04 ,

to me it's not clear also but I think this feature isn't present at the moment. There are 2 threads with this idea.

https://ideas.fabric.microsoft.com/ideas/idea/?ideaid=c6b26046-c850-ef11-b4ac-6045bdb86653

https://ideas.fabric.microsoft.com/ideas/idea/?ideaid=3646b279-5057-ef11-b4ad-000d3ae47b7b

The thing that seems absurd to me is that they only got 4 votes. They probably should be promoted in some way.

Don't forget to vote those ideas.

[dlopesc04]

Thank you for the links @Gabry ! I voted on both. 

Language on official Fabric documentation suggests this feature will/should be available, such as:

• Power BI Embedded scenarios that rely on embedded entities aren't supported yet.

• Or even in this thread: "Embedding a DirectLake report is not supported for now."
  

The problem is, I can't find this feature planned on the roadmap currently, not under Power BI, Fabric nor Onelake. Also looking back ever since being released in 2023 DirectLake hasn't seemed to have received many updates at all, which is concerning.

[FilipAi]

I met with Zoe Douglas from Microsoft at the FabCon in Stockholm in the end of September, and asked about this. She said that they are aware of the issue (ofc), but that there were some issues they had not yet resolved to make it work. Unfortunately, she couldn't say anything about inclusion in roadmap for Power BI.

[dlopesc04]

I guess we'll have to wait some more then. Some time ago I spoke with Alex Powers on the Fabric subreddit and he said this regarding DirectLake and Embedded:
"-My colleague Holly and I are tracking it very, very closely. -Next semester (Oct thru April 2025) should be getting published here soon." [Regarding these features being added to the roadmap]

In the meantime since our org is transitioning into Fabric we are thinking of leveraging the XMLA endpoint and only doing partial refreshes using custom scripts (tied to data ingestion), still using import mode on our semantic models.

[Gabry]

Thanks guys for sharing the info

[Marusyk]

any updates?

[Christian_Key]

I could really do with this feature of embedded reports using direct lake so we can surface reports into our software solutions for our customers.