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

Configure Slack Connectivity for Power BI

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

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Slack" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Slack. Slack uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties. See the Getting Started section of the help documentation for an authentication guide. 👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Slack Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

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

Query Slack Tables

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

Create Slack 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 Slack Data from Data Applications

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

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