How to configure service principal for a data source on Service

[PowerBI88]

Hi,

can you point me to the steps required as well to the information needed to configure a service principal for a data source to achieve automatic data refresh on service?

Thank you

[Aymen · Accepted solution]

Hello @PowerBI88 ,

if you want to know how to create and configure a service account you will find below tow links that can help you:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/addsadministration/new-adserviceaccount?view=win1... 
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/azure/create-azure-service-principal-azureps?view=azps-5... 

but if you already have a service account and you want to use it to authenticate to a data source just give it the necessary permissions as described below:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/security/authentication-access/create-a-lo... 

I hope that answers your question.

Best Regards,
Aymen

[PowerBI88]

Thank you. In the end, I managed to create the login for the service principal and I assigned it db owner permissions and the data refresh from service is working 🙂

[Aymen · Accepted solution]

Hello @PowerBI88 ,

if you want to know how to create and configure a service account you will find below tow links that can help you:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/addsadministration/new-adserviceaccount?view=win1... 
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/azure/create-azure-service-principal-azureps?view=azps-5... 

but if you already have a service account and you want to use it to authenticate to a data source just give it the necessary permissions as described below:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/security/authentication-access/create-a-lo... 

I hope that answers your question.

Best Regards,
Aymen

[PowerBI88]

Thank you for the useful links.

Sorry, my fault, I did not specify that my service principal is generated from Azure Active directory. So, the point is, in order to configure this principal on power bi service/power bi desktop in a datasource (that can be a SQL Azure, a Kusto query on Log Analytics, etc) which credentials do I need? Is it ok just user and password of the service principal?

Thank you

[V-lianl-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @PowerBI88 ,

Please check out this blog:

https://radacad.com/power-bi-get-data-from-azure-sql-database 

Best Regards,
Liang
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