Power BI to Azure SQL MI Connection via Power Query Parameters

Power BI does not allow credentials to be saved for dynamic data source references (i.e., server/database coming from parameters), unless you're using an on-prem gateway. This is why it works for on-prem SQL (via Gateway) but not for Azure SQL MI without one.

 

When you use Power Query parameters directly in your SQL Server connector like this:
Sql.Database(ServerParam, DatabaseParam)

 

Power BI considers this a "dynamic data source", and dynamic data sources prevent credential storage or scheduled refresh in many cases.

Limitation: Power BI cannot associate credentials with a dynamic value for server/database unless it's marked as a gateway allowed data source with fixed metadata.

 

To avoid dynamic binding issues:

Instead of:
Sql.Database(ServerParam, DatabaseParam)

 

Use:
let
Source = Sql.Database("your-server.database.windows.net", "your-db-name")
in
Source

 

Then use parameters only within queries (e.g., for schema/table filtering), not for the source connection string.

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