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

⇱ Visualize Live OData Services in Power BI (via CData Connect AI)

Visualize Live OData Services in Power BI (via CData Connect AI)

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use the CData Power BI Connector and CData Connect AI to integrate live OData services into custom reports in Power BI.

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

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

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

Query OData Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull OData services 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 OData services from Power BI

Create OData Services 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.

👁 Visualizing data in Power BI (Salesforce data is shown)

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

Live Access to OData Services from Data Applications

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

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