Admin API updates and upcoming definition changes
We are pleased to announce the release of several new Admin APIs, which offer tenant administrators advanced tools for managing tenant settings, as well as tenant setting overrides at the capacity, workspace, and domain levels.
These new APIs, along with enhancements to existing APIs, represent our continued commitment to expanding Microsoft Fabric’s administrative capabilities, thereby providing more precise control and governance over your organization’s data environment.
Key updates:
- SPN/MI support for Admin APIs
- New GET/POST Admin APIs
- Deprecation of Description property
- Performance updates to existing APIs
1. SPN/MI support for Admin APIs
Most Fabric Admin APIs now support authentication using a Service principal (SPN) or Managed identities (MI). This allows applications to authenticate and access APIs without relying on user identities. This method enhances security by avoiding the use of personal credentials in automated processes and enables better integration with existing enterprise systems. It is particularly useful for scenarios that require automated, secure, and scalable integration with services.
Method
To use service principal authentication, you need to create a service principal in Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD). Follow the steps listed Enable service principal authentication for read-only admin APIs documentation to enable service principal authentication for Fabric update APIs.
Important: For enhanced security and better management, it’s recommended to set up a dedicated service principal for Fabric Admin APIs. This ensures isolated access and clear audit trails, reducing the risk of over-permission.
All Fabric Admin REST APIs (see for example Tenants) support SPN and MI authentication:
- Domains
- External Data Shares
- Items
- Labels**
- Tenants
- Users
- Workspaces
** By design limitation – removing or changing a label must use a User Principal’s token. Likewise, Labels Admin APIs cannot work with SPN/MI.
Considerations and Limitations
- Important: This SPN support announcement covers the Fabric Admin REST APIs only. For the existing Power BI Rest APIs (including PowerBI Admin APIs), please check for each APIs’ specific Permissions section whether or not it has SPN support.
- Access to Fabric: The service principal can make REST API calls, but you can’t open Fabric with service principal credentials.
- Fabric tenant setting: Fabric admin rights are required to enable service principal in the Admin API settings in the Fabric admin portal.
- Automation: Service principal authentication enables automation of workflows without relying on user identities, making it ideal for large-scale operations.
- Security: By avoiding personal credentials, service principal authentication improves security and reduces the risk of credential exposure.
- Integration: This method allows better integration with existing enterprise systems and processes.
2. New Fabric Admin APIs
Update tenant settings
This API enables Tenant Admins to update any Fabric tenant setting. Previously, there was no straightforward method to programmatically update tenant settings. Admins typically relied on scanning the admin portal UI, which added manual overhead to the process.
| API name | Description | API method | Throttling limit |
| Update Tenant Setting | Update a given tenant setting | Update | 25 requests per minute |
Tenant setting overrides
a. New READ APIs for workspaces and domains tenant setting overrides
These new APIs give admins visibility across all the tenant settings which have any workspaces overrides or domains overrides.
| API name | Description | API method | Throttling limit |
| List Workspaces Tenant Settings Overrides | Returns list of all workspace delegation tenant setting overrides | GET | 25 requests per minute |
| List Domains Tenant Settings Overrides | Returns list of all domain delegation tenant setting overrides | GET | 25 requests per minute |
b. New READ, UPDATE, DELETE APIs for managing Capacity Tenant Setting overrides
These new APIs provide admins with granular control over tenant settings overridden at the capacity-level.
| API name | Description | API method | Throttling limit |
| List Capacity Tenant Settings Overrides by Capacity Id | Returns list of tenant setting overrides that override for given capacity Id | GET | 100 requests per minute |
| Delete Capacity Tenant Setting Override | Remove given tenant setting override for given capacity Id | DELETE | 25 requests per minute |
| Update Capacity Tenant Setting Override | Update given tenant setting override for given capacity Id | POST | 25 requests per minute |
What’s new in these APIs
The new Admin APIs make it easy for tenant admins (User or SPN/MI) to:
- Update any tenant setting programmatically.
- Retrieve and modify capacity overrides: Access and review overrides to tenant settings done on a specific capacity.
- Retrieve capacity workspace and domain overrides: Access and review workspace or domain-level overrides to tenant settings.
- Gain visibility: Quickly see which settings have been modified for a specific capacity, helping maintain compliance and track custom configurations.
- Manage governance: Enforce or adjust tenant policies in a way that aligns with organizational needs, whether on a global or a more localized scale.
Key Use Cases for the new APIs
These APIs unlock critical scenarios for admins aiming to balance tenant-wide governance with the flexibility to customize individual workspaces or domains. Some of the key use cases include:
- Audit and compliance: Easily track which tenant settings have been overridden at the capacity, workspace or domain level, providing clear visibility into configuration changes that impact governance.
- Custom capacity configurations: Set and manage exceptions for capacities requiring unique configurations that differ from tenant-wide settings.
- Automation and monitoring: Automate the tracking of tenant’s settings (TS) and TS capacity overrides, integrate setting checks into monitoring solutions, and ensure settings are applied consistently across the environment.
How to enable and use the new APIs
These APIs are accessible to tenant admins through the Fabric Admin API surface. Detailed documentation, including endpoint details and response formats, is available in the Microsoft Fabric documentation.
To get started, admins can simply integrate these API calls into their administrative workflows to monitor and adjust setting overrides as needed. For those using automation scripts, these APIs can be incorporated to simplify governance tasks and provide real-time insights into workspace and domain-level configurations.
3. Important update: Upcoming deprecation of ‘overrides’ property
Please note that the ‘overrides’ property, which currently lists tenant settings overridden by a capacity admin in the List Capacities Tenant Settings API, will be planned to be deprecated in the future.
To ensure continuity, we recommend that customers begin using the ‘value’ property to access the same information. This change is part of our ongoing efforts to consolidate API properties for a more streamlined experience.
In a similar effort, in the List Tenant Settings API we also recommend that customers begin using the ‘value’ property to access the same information as the ‘tenant settings’ property, which is also targeted for a future deprecation.
4. API update for performance for GetDatasourcesAsAdmin
In this release we also made some performance updates.
GetDatasourcesAsAdmin API now returns a list of data sources for the specified dataset. Previously this API was queuing requests with short delays in between requests.
Instead of queuing, the API now supports up to 300 requests/hour.
What’s next?
We believe these Admin APIs enhancements and additions will empower tenant admins to better manage settings across Microsoft Fabric, streamlining governance workflows and enabling more control over data environments. As we continue to evolve these capabilities, we welcome your feedback and encourage you to share insights on how these APIs enhance your day-to-day operations.
We look forward to your feedback and continued support!
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