MGDC for SharePoint – Overview and prerequisites

You can use the Microsoft Graph Data Connect for SharePoint to extract SharePoint and OneDrive information and use that to run analytics for your tenant. You get data in an Azure Storage account owned by the tenant, and you can easily transform and visualize the data.

For example, if you’re looking at the SharePoint Sites dataset, you will get a complete list of all sites in the tenant (including OneDrive and Teams), with information like id, name, type, storage used, file count, date created and much more.

What do you need to use Microsoft Graph Data Connect for SharePoint? If you are planning your first MGDC for SharePoint POC or deployment, here the things you need to configure in Microsoft 365, Azure and Power BI.

1. Enable the Microsoft Graph Data Connect in the Admin Center. Make sure to check SharePoint option (M365)
2. Create an Azure Active Directory Application Identity to run the pipelines. Add a secret or a certificate for authentication (AAD)
3. Create an Azure Resource Group. Select the same region as your Microsoft 365 tenant (Azure)
4. Create an Azure Storage Account. Make sure this is enabled as an Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (Azure)
5. Create a container and folder in your Storage Account. (Azure)
6. Grant the Application Identity access to the Storage Account (Azure)
7. Add the MGDC Application (Azure)
8. Approve the MGDC Application Access (M365)
9. Create a Synapse workspace (Azure)
10. Create and publish a new Synapse pipeline (Azure)
11. Create a new Power BI report locally (Power BI)
12. Publish the Power BI Report (Power BI)

If you need more details, please review these step-by-step instructions.

You can also review this blog with Links about Microsoft Graph Data Connect for SharePoint.

Note: This assumes you are using the new MGDC consent process introduced in 2023/08/18. Find more details in the MGDC documentation.