Providing ODBC database names in Power BI

You can create a technical lineage for ODBC data sources in Power BI. However, ODBC database names often can't be determined. When a database name can't be determined, it's given a substitute name, which is the ODBC connection string.

This substitute name can be seen in the technical lineage, but it is merely a placeholder that doesn't carry any meaning if you're trying to identify the database it represents in the technical lineage. A bigger problem is that if you want to stitch the ODBC database to assets in Data Catalog, the substitute name won't match with any ingested databases, so stitching won't work.

To ensure that the true database names appear in the technical lineage, and to ensure successful stitching, you can use a Power BI <source ID> configuration file to provide the true system names of the ODBC databases in Power BI.

Tip The name "<source ID>" refers to the value of the sourceId property in the configuration file. If, for example, the value of the sourceId property in the lineage harvester configuration file is power-bi-source-1, then the name of your <source ID> configuration file should be power-bi-source-1.conf.

Example of the <source ID> configuration file

For each ODBC database in Power BI, add the following content to the JSON file:

{
	"found_dbname=DSN_MYDATABASE;found_hostname=ODBC": {
		"dbname": "DB001",
		"schema": "MYSCHEMA",
		"dialect": "oracle",
		"collibraSystemName": "oracle-system-name"
	}
}

Property	Description
found_dbname=<substitute database name>;found_hostname=<server name>	`found_dbname` is the substitute database name. You need to convert it to uppercase and replace every non-alphanumeric character by an underscore (_). In this example, the substitute name is “dsn=MYDATABASE”, so you should use "DSN_MYDATABASE". Note The substitute name is the ODBC connection string, which can be lengthy when it includes the driver and parameters in full. `found_hostname` should be “ODBC”, but you can also use an asterisk (*).
dbname	The true system name of the ODBC database in Power BI.
schema	The name of the default schema of the ODBC database in Power BI. If no schema is specified and the lineage harvester fails to find a specific schema, it uses the default schema.
dialect	The dialect of the ODBC connection. The dialect must be one of the supported SQL dialects. If no dialect is specified, “mssql” is used, by default. Click here for a list of dialects of supported data sources in Power BI. azure, for an Azure SQL Server data source. bigquery, for a Google BigQuery data source. mssql, for a Microsoft SQL Server data source. oracle, for an Oracle data source. redshift, for an Amazon Redshift data source. snowflake, for a Snowflake data source. sybase, for a Sybase data source.
collibraSystemName	The system or server name of a database. Important Because you are using a <source ID> configuration file only for the purpose of providing the true system name of an ODBC database in Power BI, you are not required to: Set the `useCollibraSystemName` property in the lineage harvester configuration file to `true`. Specify a Collibra system name in the <source ID> configuration file. However, if the `useCollibraSystemName` property is set to `true` in the lineage harvester configuration file, then you must specify a Collibra system name in the <source ID> configuration file.