connecting to unity catalog with power BI

[Miloud_G]

i created a group of powerBI users, i grant consumer access permission to this groupe on unity catalog 

i started a shared compute cluster (Standard_D4ds_v5). 

when trying to connect from power BI, i will connect to tables only if i grant access to workspace on groupe

Is their a way to connect to tables without giving access to workspace and without using SQL warehouse(serverLess) 

thank you

[radothede · Accepted solution]

Hi @Miloud_G 

Instead of granting full workspace access, you can grant "Databricks SQL access" entitlement, which provides limited workspace access specifically for BI tools.

Go to Workspace Settings → Identity and Access → Groups/Users/SPs Manage → Select the group or user or SP → Entitlements → Enable Databricks SQL access

Generally, it is advised to use SQL endpoints for PBI workloads - they perform much better due to cache, optimisations, photon, etc. 

I would also recommend to use Serverless, this is because You will not pay for spin-up and Your resources will be deallocated shortly after. SQL Warehouses provide better isolation and governance for BI workloads as well as better performance and cost optimization for BI scenarios.

You can also take a look into databricks pbi connection best practices cheat sheet.