Enable or Disable Power BI AI Parsing

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Available from version 2026.3.1

Alation provides a tenant-level feature flag to centrally enable or disable the Power BI AI parsing feature across all Power BI Scanner OCF connectors. This allows Server Admins to control AI feature usage at the organizational level for compliance, governance, or cost management purposes.

Overview

The Power BI AI parsing feature uses Generative AI via Amazon Bedrock to extract connection information from complex M query expressions for improved lineage. See Power BI Scanner AI Parser for full details on this feature.

By default, the tenant-level flag and AI parsing for all data sources are enabled. Source Admins can disable AI parsing for specific Power BI data sources, while Server Admins can disable the tenant-level flag to prevent AI parsing across all Power BI connectors on the instance.

Enable or Disable the Flag

  1. Go to Admin Settings > Feature Configuration.

  2. Search for Enable Power BI AI Parser setting.

    ../../_images/PowerBI_AIParser_TenantFlag.png

  3. Turn on the toggle to enable (default) or turn off the toggle to disable the feature.

When the Enable Power BI AI Parser flag is turned off:

  • The AI-based expression parsing section on the BI source settings page is grayed out and cannot be modified by Source Admins.

  • A warning message is displayed indicating that AI parsing is disabled at the tenant level.

  • All existing Power BI data source-level AI parsing configurations are disabled.

When the Enable Power BI AI Parser flag is turned on:

  • AI parsing is enabled by default on each data source. Source Admins can disable or re-enable it per data source on the BI source settings page.

  • The AI-based expression parsing section is fully interactive.

Important

Turning off the Enable Power BI AI Parser flag takes precedence over individual data source settings. Even if a Source Admin had previously enabled AI parsing on a specific data source, it will be disabled when the flag is turned off.

Note

When the Enable Power BI AI Parser flag is changed, existing data source-level configurations are automatically updated to match the new setting. This ensures consistent behavior across all Power BI connectors.

Also See