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

Configure Zuora Connectivity for Power BI

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

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

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

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Zuora.

   Zuora uses the OAuth standard to authenticate users. See the online Help documentation for a full OAuth authentication guide.

   Configuring Tenant property

   In order to create a valid connection with the provider you need to choose one of the Tenant values (USProduction by default) which matches your account configuration. The following is a list with the available options:

   • USProduction: Requests sent to https://rest.zuora.com.
   • USAPISandbox: Requests sent to https://rest.apisandbox.zuora.com"
   • USPerformanceTest: Requests sent to https://rest.pt1.zuora.com"
   • EUProduction: Requests sent to https://rest.eu.zuora.com"
   • EUSandbox: Requests sent to https://rest.sandbox.eu.zuora.com"

   Selecting a Zuora Service

   Two Zuora services are available: Data Query and AQuA API. By default ZuoraService is set to AQuADataExport.

   DataQuery

   The Data Query feature enables you to export data from your Zuora tenant by performing asynchronous, read-only SQL queries. We recommend to use this service for quick lightweight SQL queries.

   Limitations
   • The maximum number of input records per table after filters have been applied: 1,000,000
   • The maximum number of output records: 100,000
   • The maximum number of simultaneous queries submitted for execution per tenant: 5
   • The maximum number of queued queries submitted for execution after reaching the limitation of simultaneous queries per tenant: 10
   • The maximum processing time for each query in hours: 1
   • The maximum size of memory allocated to each query in GB: 2
   • The maximum number of indices when using Index Join, in other words, the maximum number of records being returned by the left table based on the unique value used in the WHERE clause when using Index Join: 20,000

   AQuADataExport

   AQuA API export is designed to export all the records for all the objects ( tables ). AQuA query jobs have the following limitations:

   Limitations
   • If a query in an AQuA job is executed longer than 8 hours, this job will be killed automatically.
   • The killed AQuA job can be retried three times before returned as failed.
   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Zuora Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

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

Query Zuora Tables

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

Create Zuora 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 Zuora Data from Data Applications

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

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