Prepare the lineage harvester configuration file for SSRS and PBRS integration

You have to prepare a configuration file before you run the lineage harvester. The lineage harvester collects your SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and Power BI Report Server (PBRS) metadata and sends it to Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud, where it is processed and analyzed. Collibra then imports the SSRS and PBRS assets and relations to Data Catalog.

Tip We highly recommend to use the configuration file generator to make sure your configuration file is valid.

Prerequisites

• You have access to the lineage harvester in the Downloads section of the Collibra Product Resource Center.
• You have Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud 2021.09 or newer.
• You have downloaded the newest version of the lineage harvester and you have the necessary system requirements to run it.
• You have prepared a SSRS and PBRS <source ID> configuration file, if necessary.
• In SSRS, you have a user that has the Content Manager role at the root folder level.
• In PBRS, you have a user that has the Content Manager role at the root folder level.
• You have a global role that has the Manage all resources global permission.

Steps

1. Run the following command line to start the lineage harvester:
   • Windows: .\bin\lineage-harvester.bat
     
   • For other operating systems: chmod +x bin/lineage-harvester and then bin/lineage-harvester
     
   An empty configuration file is created in the config folder.
   
2. Open the lineage-harvester.conf file and enter the values for each property.

   Properties	Description
   general	This section describes the connection information between the lineage harvester and Data Catalog.
   catalog	This section contains information that is necessary to connect to Data Catalog.
   url	The URL of your Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud environment. Note You can only enter the public URL of your Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud environment. Other URLs will not be accepted.
   username	The username that you use to sign in to Collibra.
   useCollibraSystemName	Indicates whether or no you intend to use a SSRS and PBRS <source ID> configuration file, to specify the system or server name of a data source. This is useful when you have multiple databases with the same name. By default, this property is set to false. If you set this property to true, you must prepare a SSRS and PBRS <source ID> configuration file.
   useSharedDbModel	Optional property to enable the sharing of metadata batches from multiple SQL data sources. Set this property to true, to help avoid potential analysis errors on the Collibra Data Lineage server. To use this property, you need lineage harvester 2022.07 or newer. If you set this property to true, you have to run the lineage harvester twice. Read the following details about the issue and solution. See details about the issue and solution Normally, when you run the lineage harvester to harvest metadata from two or more data sources, the metadata from each source is processed independently. This means that the metadata from one data source cannot access the metadata of another. Let’s say, for example, you specify the following two SQL data sources in your lineage harvester configuration file: A database source that retrieves the database model. An SqlDirectory source with Data Manipulation Language (DML) statements that reference data in the database source. Because these data sources are processed independently, there is a good chance that the DML statements will fail during analysis. Any wildcards in the DML statements, for example, would fail because the SqlDirectory source can’t access the referenced database source. The solution The shared database model allows for computed results from a “main” batch. Although multiple data sources are still processed independently, the metadata from each data source is merged into a main batch. Then, before analyzing the next batch, a check is done to see if a preceding main batch exists. If one does, the analyzer retrieves the database model and the DML statements successfully pass analysis. This means, however, that you have to run the lineage harvester twice. On the first run, the harvested metadata is merged in a main batch. Then, when you run the lineage harvester again, using the full-sync command, the subsequent batches are able to successfully reference the metadata in the main batch. In a future version of Collibra, this property will be enabled by default and you won't need to run the lineage harvester twice.
   sources	This section contains all SSRS connection properties.
   collibraSystemName	The system or server that you use when you ingest SQL Server Reporting Services. If you only want to ingest one SQL Server Reporting Services source, this property is optional. If you want to ingest multiple SQL Server Reporting Services sources, you have to leave this property empty and create a SQL Server Reporting Services <source ID> configuration file. Note If the useCollibraSystemName is set to true, you have to include a separate configuration file separate configuration file that maps the data objects in SQL Server Reporting Services to a system > database > schema > table > column structure.
   id	The unique ID to identify the SSRSmetadata that was uploaded to the Collibra Data Lineage server. Tip This value can be anything as long as it is a unique. The lineage harvester uses the ID to identify a batch of data on the Collibra Data Lineage server. Warning In the sources section of your lineage harvester configuration file, you can only specify one id property per SQL Server Reporting Service (SSRS) or Power BI Report Server (PBRS). If you have multiple id properties for a single SSRS or PBRS, ingestion will fail. If you have multiple id properties in the configuration file, it means you intend to ingest from multiple unique SSRS or PBRS.
   type	The kind of data source. In this case, the value has to be SSRS or PBIRS. Note There is no difference between type SSRS or PBIRS.
   url	The URL to the server's web portal. By default, the URL is http://<computer-name>/reports. For example, "http://1.23.45.678/PowerBIReports".
   username	The username you use to sign in to the web portal. Tip If you use NTLM authentication, your username also contains the NTLM domain name. For example MyDomain\\username.
   domainId	The unique ID of the domaindomain in Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud in which you want to ingest the SSRS assets. Finding the domain ID Open the domain. Copy the domain ID. Tip If you go to your domain, you can find the domain ID in the URL. The URL looks like: https://<yourcollibrainstance>/domain/22258f64-40b6-4b16-9c08-c95f8ec0da26?view=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000040001. In this example, the domain ID is in bold.
   folderFilter	An option to exclude specific folders that contain reports or KPIs from the ingestion process. You can add multiple folders by listing folder names, providing the full path to folders or by using a wildcard: Use folder names when the folder name is unique: ["folder 1", "folder 2"] Use the full path to the folder to only ingest a specific folder: ["/database1/folder1", "/database2/folder2"] Use a wildcard to ingest all child folders or a specific folder: ["/folder1/*", "/folder2/*"] You can also use a combination of these methods. For example, ["folder 1", "/database/folder2", /folder3/*"] Important This property must be included in your configuration file and it cannot be empty. If you want to ingest all folders, use *, for example: "folderFilter":["*"]. Tip For more information about connecting to a SSRS or PBRS folder, see the Microsoft documentation.

3. Save the configuration file.
4. Start the lineage harvester again in the console and run the following command:
   • for Windows: .\bin\lineage-harvester.bat full-sync
   • for other operating systems: ./bin/lineage-harvester full-sync
5. When prompted, enter the passwords to connect to Collibra and SSRS. Do one of the following:
   • Enter the passwords in the console.
     The passwords are encrypted and stored in /config/pwd.conf.
   • Provide the passwords via command line.
     The passwords are stored locally and not in your lineage harvester folder.

Example

{
 "general": {
   "catalog": {
     "url": "https://<organization>.collibra.com",
     "username": "<your-collibra-username>"
   },
   "useCollibraSystemName": false,
   "useSharedDbModel": true
 },
  "sources": {
    "collibraSystemName": "",
    "id": "<unique-id>",
    "type": "SSRS",
    "url": "http://<IP address or computer name>/Reports",
    "username": "<server-api-user-name>",
    "domainId": "<domain-resource-id>",
    "folderFilter":  ["/Folder1/*", "Folder2"]
  }
}

Note There is no difference between type SSRS or PBIRS.

Tip We highly recommend you to use the lineage harvester configuration file generator when you create a configuration file.

What's next?

The lineage harvester triggers Collibra to import SSRS and PBRS assets and their relations and create a technical lineage for SSRS assets.Collibra also stitches the new SSRS assets to existing assets in Data Catalog.

Note We can only access stitching and lineage information for SSRS assets, but not for Power BI reports in SSRS and PBRS.

If issues occur during the ingestion process, check the Collibra Data Lineage troubleshooting section to solve your problems.

To synchronize the SSRS and PBRS metadata, you can run the lineage harvester again or schedule jobs to run them automatically.

Tip You can check the progress of the ingestion in Activities. The results field indicates how many relations were imported into Data Catalog.