Visualize Live BigCommerce Data in Power BI (via CData Connect AI)

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 use CData Connect to create a live connection to BigCommerce, connect to BigCommerce data from Power BI and then create reports on BigCommerce data in Power BI.

Configure BigCommerce Connectivity for Power BI

Connectivity to BigCommerce from Power BI is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with BigCommerce data from Power BI, 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 Power BI.

Query BigCommerce Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull BigCommerce data into the report:

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

Create BigCommerce Data Visualizations

After connecting to the data into Power BI, you can create data visualizations in the Report view by dragging fields from the Fields pane onto the canvas. Select the dimensions and measures you wish to visualize along with the chart type.

Click Refresh to synchronize your report with any changes to the data.

Live Access to BigCommerce Data from Data Applications

With CData Connect AI you have a direct connection to BigCommerce data from Power BI. You can import more data, create new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating BigCommerce data.

To get SQL data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including BigCommerce) directly from your on-premise BI, reporting, ETL and other data applications, visit the CData Connect AI page and start a free trial.