Import BigCommerce Data into the Power BI Service for Visualizations

Power BI transforms your company's data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get access to BigCommerce data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to BigCommerce in CData Connect AI, publish a dataset from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI Service and then create reports on BigCommerce data in the Power BI service.

Configure BigCommerce Connectivity for Power BI Service

Connectivity to BigCommerce from Power BI Service is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with BigCommerce data from Power BI Service, we start by creating and configuring a BigCommerce connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "BigCommerce" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to BigCommerce.

   BigCommerce authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Big Commerce developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. These three parameters will be set as connection properties to your driver.

   Additionally, in order to connect to your BigCommerce Store, you will need your StoreId. To find your Store Id please follow these steps:

   1. Log in to your BigCommerce account.
   2. From the Home Page, select Advanced Settings > API Accounts.
   3. Click Create API Account.
   4. A text box named API Path will appear on your screen.
   5. Inside you can see a URL of the following structure: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{Store Id}/v3.
   6. As demonstrated above, your Store Id will be between the 'stores/' and '/v3' path paramters.
   7. Once you have retrieved your Store Id you can either click Cancel or proceed in creating an API Account in case you do not have one already.
   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add BigCommerce Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to BigCommerce data from the Power BI service.

Publish a Dataset from Power BI Desktop

Once you connect to BigCommerce in Connect AI, you can create a dataset in Power BI desktop and publish the dataset to the Power BI service.

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Online Services -> CData Connect AI and click "Connect"
2. Click "Sign in" and authenticate with your CData Connect AI account 👁 Authenticating with Connect AI
   
3. After signing in, click "Connect" 👁 Connecting to Connect AI
   
4. Select tables in the Navigator dialog 👁 The available tables. (Salesforce tables are shown)
   
5. Click Load to establish the connection to your BigCommerce data from Power BI
6. Define any relationships between the selected entities on the Relationships tab.
7. Click Publish (from the Home menu) and select a Workspace.

Build Reports and Dashboards on BigCommerce Data in the Power BI Service

Now that you have published a dataset to the Power BI service, you can create new reports and dashboards based on the published data:

1. Log in to PowerBI.com.
2. Click Workspaces and select a workspace.
3. Click Create and select Report.
4. Select the published dataset for the report. 👁 Select a dataset
   
5. Choose fields and visualizations to add to your report. 👁 Visualizing BigCommerce data in the Power BI service
   

Live Access to BigCommerce Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live BigCommerce data from the Power BI service. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating BigCommerce data.

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect AI.