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

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

Visualize Live Salesforce Data 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 Salesforce data 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 Salesforce data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to use CData Connect to create a live connection to Salesforce, connect to Salesforce data from Power BI and then create reports on Salesforce data in Power BI.

About Salesforce Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from Salesforce has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Access to custom entities and fields means Salesforce users get access to all of Salesforce.
  • Create atomic and batch update operations.
  • Read, write, update, and delete their Salesforce data.
  • Leverage the latest Salesforce features and functionalities with support for SOAP API versions 30.0.
  • See improved performance based on SOQL support to push complex queries down to Salesforce servers.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to perform actions like creating, retrieving, aborting, and deleting jobs, uploading and downloading attachments and documents, and more.

Users frequently integrate Salesforce data with:

  • other ERPs, marketing automation, HCMs, and more.
  • preferred data tools like Power BI, Tableau, Looker, and more.
  • databases and data warehouses.

For more information on how CData solutions work with Salesforce, check out our Salesforce integration page.


Getting Started


Configure Salesforce Connectivity for Power BI

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

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Salesforce" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Salesforce uses OAuth to authenticate. Click "Sign in" to authenticate with Salesforce. 👁 Authenticating with OAuth (Salesforce is shown).
  4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Salesforce Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

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

Query Salesforce Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull Salesforce 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 Salesforce data from Power BI

Create Salesforce 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.

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

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

Live Access to Salesforce Data from Data Applications

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

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