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Create reports on data warehousing in Microsoft Fabric

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Applies to: ✅ SQL analytics endpoint and Warehouse in Microsoft Fabric

Microsoft Fabric lets you create reusable and default Power BI semantic models to create reports in various ways in Power BI. This article describes the various ways you can use your Warehouse or SQL analytics endpoint, and their default Power BI semantic models, to create reports.

For example, you can establish a live connection to a shared semantic model in the Power BI service and create many different reports from the same semantic model. You can create a data model in Power BI Desktop and publish to the Power BI service. Then, you and others can create multiple reports in separate .pbix files from that common data model and save them to different workspaces.

Advanced users can build reports from a warehouse using a composite model or using the SQL connection string.

Reports that use the Warehouse or SQL analytics endpoint can be created in either of the following two tools:

Note

Microsoft has renamed the Power BI dataset content type to semantic model. This applies to Microsoft Fabric as well. For more information, see New name for Power BI datasets.

Create reports using the Power BI service

Within Data Warehouse, using the ribbon and the main home tab, navigate to the New report button. This option provides a native, quick way to create report built on top of the default Power BI semantic model.

Screenshot of new report in the ribbon.

If no tables have been added to the default Power BI semantic model, the dialog first automatically adds tables, prompting the user to confirm or manually select the tables included in the canonical default semantic model first, ensuring there's always data first.

With a default semantic model that has tables, the New report opens a browser tab to the report editing canvas to a new report that is built on the semantic model. When you save your new report you're prompted to choose a workspace, provided you have write permissions for that workspace. If you don't have write permissions, or if you're a free user and the semantic model resides in a Premium capacity workspace, the new report is saved in your My workspace.

For more information on how to create reports using the Power BI service, see Create reports in the Power BI service.

Create reports using Power BI Desktop

You can build reports from semantic models with Power BI Desktop using a Live connection to the default semantic model. For information on how to make the connection, see connect to semantic models from Power BI Desktop.

For a tutorial with Power BI Desktop, see Get started with Power BI Desktop. For advanced situations where you want to add more data or change the storage mode, see use composite models in Power BI Desktop.

If you're browsing for a specific SQL analytics endpoint or Warehouse in OneLake, you can use the OneLake in Power BI Desktop to make a connection and build reports:

  1. Open Power BI Desktop and select Warehouse under the OneLake dropdown list in the ribbon.
  2. Select the desired warehouse.
    • If you would like to create a live connection to the automatically defined data model, select Connect.
    • If you would like to connect directly to the data source and define your own data model, select the dropdown list arrow for the Connect button and select Connect to SQL endpoint.
  3. For authentication, select Organizational account.
  4. Authenticate using Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) multifactor authentication (MFA).
  5. If you selected Connect to SQL endpoint, select the data items you want to include or not include in your semantic model.

Alternatively, if you have the SQL connection string of your SQL analytics endpoint or Warehouse and would like more advanced options, such as writing a SQL statement to filter out specific data, connect to a warehouse in Power BI Desktop:

  1. In the Fabric portal, right-click on the Warehouse or SQL analytics endpoint in your workspace and select Copy SQL connection string. Or, navigate to the Warehouse Settings in your workspace. Copy the SQL connection string.
  2. Open Power BI Desktop and select SQL Server in the ribbon.
  3. Paste the SQL connection string under Server.
  4. In the Navigator dialog, select the databases and tables you would like to load.
  5. If prompted for authentication, select Organizational account.
  6. Authenticate using Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) multifactor authentication (MFA). For more information, see Microsoft Entra authentication as an alternative to SQL authentication in Microsoft Fabric.

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