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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/odata-cloud-powerbi-service.rst

⇱ Import OData Services into the Power BI Service for Visualizations

Import OData Services into the Power BI Service for Visualizations

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to OData Services and provide access to live OData services for custom reports in the Power BI Service.

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 OData services for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to OData in CData Connect AI, publish a dataset from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI Service and then create reports on OData services in the Power BI service.

About OData Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live OData services data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Access OData versions 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0, working with legacy services and the latest features and capabilities.
  • Leverage advanced query options, including $filter, $select, and $expand, enhancing data retrieval from 3rd party tools.
  • Use Server-side execution of aggregation and grouping to minimize data transfer and boost performance.
  • Authenticate securely using a variety of schemes, including Azure AD, digest, negotiate, NTLM, OAuth, and more means secure authentication with every connection.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to manage OData service entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

Customers use CData's solutions to regularly integrate their OData services with preferred tools, such as Power BI, MicroStrategy, or Tableau, and to replicate data from OData services to their databases or data warehouses.


Getting Started


Configure OData Connectivity for Power BI Service

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

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "OData" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to OData.

    The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid OData user credentials. In addition, specify a URL to a valid OData server organization root or OData services file.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add OData Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to OData services from the Power BI service.

Publish a Dataset from Power BI Desktop

Once you connect to OData 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 OData services 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 OData Services 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 OData services in the Power BI service

Live Access to OData Services from Cloud Applications

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

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.