Create Power BI Reports on Real-Time Cvent Data

With built-in support for ODBC on Microsoft Windows, the CData ODBC Drivers provide self-service integration with self-service analytics tools such as Microsoft Power BI. The CData ODBC Driver for Cvent links your Power BI reports to operational Cvent data. You can monitor Cvent data through dashboards and ensure that your analysis reflects Cvent data in real time by scheduling refreshes or refreshing on demand. This article details how to use the ODBC driver to create real-time visualizations of Cvent data in Microsoft Power BI Desktop and then upload to Power BI.

The CData ODBC Drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Cvent data in Power BI due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from Power BI to Cvent, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Cvent and utilizes the embedded SQL Engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze Cvent data using native Power BI data types.

Connect to Cvent as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs. 👁 Configure ODBC DSN. (Salesforce is shown.)

Before you can authenticate to Cvent, you must create a workspace and an OAuth application.

Creating a Workspace

To create a workspace:

1. Sign into Cvent and navigate to App Switcher (the blue button in the upper right corner of the page) >> Admin.
2. In the Admin menu, navigate to Integrations >> REST API.
3. A new tab launches for Developer Management. Click on Manage API Access in the new tab.
4. Create a Workspace and name it. Select the scopes you would like your developers to have access to. Scopes control what data domains the developer can access.
   • Choose All to allow developers to choose any scope, and any future scopes added to the REST API.
   • Choose Custom to limit the scopes developers can choose for their OAuth apps to selected scopes. To access all tables exposed by the driver, you need to set the following scopes:

     event/attendees:read	event/attendees:write	event/contacts:read
     event/contacts:write	event/custom-fields:read	event/custom-fields:write
     event/events:read	event/events:write	event/sessions:delete
     event/sessions:read	event/sessions:write	event/speakers:delete
     event/speakers:read	event/speakers:write	budget/budget-items:read
     budget/budget-items:write	exhibitor/exhibitors:read	exhibitor/exhibitors:write
     survey/surveys:read	survey/surveys:write

Creating an OAuth Application

After you have set up a Workspace and invited them, developers can sign up and create a custom OAuth app. See the Creating a Custom OAuth Application section in the Help documentation for more information.

Connecting to Cvent

After creating an OAuth application, set the following connection properties to connect to Cvent:

• InitiateOAuth: GETANDREFRESH. Used to automatically get and refresh the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientId: The Client ID associated with the OAuth application. You can find this on the Applications page in the Cvent Developer Portal.
• OAuthClientSecret: The Client secret associated with the OAuth application. You can find this on the Applications page in the Cvent Developer Portal.

Create Data Visualizations

After creating an ODBC DSN, follow the steps below to connect to the Cvent ODBC DSN from Power BI Desktop:

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> More... to open the Get Data window. 👁 Open Get Data window.
   
2. In the Get Data window select Other -> ODBC to open the next window. 👁 Select ODBC.
   
3. Select the DSN in the menu. If you know the SQL query you want to use to import data, you can expand the Advanced options node and enter the query in the SQL Statement box. Otherwise, click OK to continue. 👁 Select the ODBC DSN. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
4. Choose Default or Custom as the authentication option and click Connect. 👁 Choose authentication option. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
5. Select tables in the Navigator dialog. 👁 The available tables. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

6. Click Transform Data to edit the query. The table you imported is displayed in the Power Query Editor. In the Power Query Editor, you can enrich your local copy of Cvent data with other data sources, pivot Cvent columns, and more. Power BI detects each column's data type from the Cvent metadata retrieved by the driver.

   Power BI records your modifications to the query in the Applied Steps section, adjusting the underlying data retrieval query that is executed to the remote Cvent data. When you click Close and Apply, Power BI executes the data retrieval query.

   Otherwise, click Load to pull the data into Power BI.

Create Data Visualizations

After pulling the data into Power BI, you can create data visualizations in the Report view by dragging fields from the Fields pane onto the canvas. Follow the steps below to create a pie chart (Salesforce shown):

1. Select the pie chart icon in the Visualizations pane.
2. Select a dimension in the Fields pane: for example, Name.
3. Select a measure in the Fields pane: for example, Annual Revenue.

👁 A pie chart showing Account Names and Annual Revenue from Salesforce.

You can change sort options by clicking the ellipsis (...) button for the chart. Options to select the sort column and change the sort order are displayed.

You can use both highlighting and filtering to focus on data. Filtering removes unfocused data from visualizations; highlighting dims unfocused data. You can highlight fields by clicking them:

👁 A highlighted account in a pie chart. (Salesforce is shown.)

You can apply filters at the page level, at the report level, or to a single visualization by dragging fields onto the Filters pane. To filter on the field's value, select one of the values that are displayed in the Filters pane.

👁 Accounts and Annual Revenue filtered by Industry. (Salesforce is shown.)

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

Free Trial & More Information

If you are interested in connecting to your Cvent data from Microsoft Power BI, or any applications that support ODBC connectivity, download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for Cvent. As always, our world-class support team is ready to answer any questions you may have.