A source connects dScribe to one of your data tools — Power BI, Databricks, Fabric, Snowflake, and so on. Once connected, dScribe automatically catalogs the reports and datasets in that tool along with useful source-side metadata, so your catalog stays up to date without manual work.
Ways to connect a source
You can bring data into dScribe in three ways, depending on what's available for your tool:
Native connectors — dScribe ships with a growing set of out-of-the-box connectors that handle authentication, crawling, and metadata mapping automatically. Browse the full list (with setup guides per connector) under Integrations.
Custom connectors — if a connector for your tool isn't available out of the box, you can build your own. See Building a custom connector.
The dScribe API — for one-off imports, ad hoc syncs, or programmatic integrations where you want full control over what's pushed to the catalog. See Getting started with the API.
Don't see your connector? A connector may exist but not yet be activated on your dScribe tenant. Reach out to us through the in-app chat and we'll check.
Creating a new source
To set up a new source, go to the admin portal > Sources and follow the setup guide for the connector you're using. Each connector has its own walkthrough under Integrations.
Scheduling a source
Once your connection details are in place, you can configure how and when dScribe should crawl the source:
Define filtering rules (connector specific) — for example, exclude specific Power BI workspaces or only include tables from a given schema.
Set a schedule — daily or weekly.
You can also crawl on demand by clicking the Run now button. The source page displays an overview of the three next scheduled runs and the three most recent runs so you can see what's been ingested and when.
Things to keep in mind
Filtering uses RegEx
Filtering rules in sources are evaluated as regular expressions. That means special characters — [, ], %, #, $, +, |, (, ), {, }, *, ?, ^ — need to be escaped with a backslash (\) when you want to match them literally.
Wildcards
Imagine you have two Power BI workspaces named PRD and PRD Sales. To include or exclude every workspace whose name starts with PRD, use the filter PRD.*. The .* matches any characters after PRD, so both workspaces are caught by the rule.
RegEx cheat sheet
RegEx statement | Explanation | Example |
| Wildcard for any number of characters | PRD.* --> will match all workspaces starting with "PRD" |
| Ensures special characters are interpreted literally | www |
Standard APIs
dScribe uses the standard APIs provided by source vendors. As a result, the authorizations dScribe needs are sometimes broader than what's strictly necessary for the metadata being read — this is dictated by the source vendor, not by dScribe. We don't modify or work around their APIs. If those authorization requirements are a problem for your security policies, the alternative is a custom integration built by your team or your implementation partner using the dScribe API.
Where to go next
→ Integrations — full list of native connectors with per-connector setup guides
→ Building a custom connector — develop your own connector when no native one fits
→ Getting started with the API — push assets and metadata to dScribe programmatically
→ Creating assets — how cataloged assets show up alongside manually created ones
Have a question or can't find what you're looking for? Use the chat icon inside the catalog to reach the dScribe support team.