Use Always Encrypted data with SSAS and Power BI

I got an interesting question today about using Always Encrypted columns with SSAS and Power BI and it turns out it this just works. Let’s take a look at how we can set this up.

The way that Always Encrypted works is that a SQL client driver (provider) transparently decrypts the data after reading it from the column. The data, stored in the encrypted column, never appears in plaintext inside SQL Server or over the wire. To be able to decrypt and read the data, the client connecting to SQL Server needs to have access to a column master key, such a certificate installed on the client machine, which is then used to decrypt a column encryption key, which subsequently allows the provider to decrypt the data locally. For more please read this article: https://aka.ms/AlwaysEncrypted.

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