Prepare, Blend, and Analyze Power BI XMLA Data in Alteryx Designer

Alteryx is a software platform that allows people to work with data more easily. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, Alteryx provides instant access to Power BI XMLA data from your data automation processes. This article demonstrates how to connect to Power BI XMLA using Connect Cloud and work with Power BI XMLA data in Alteryx.

CData Connect Cloud offers a dedicated SQL Server interface for Power BI XMLA, facilitating data querying without the need for data replication to a native database. With built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, straight to Power BI XMLA. This harnesses server-side processing to rapidly retrieve the desired Power BI XMLA data.

Configure Power BI XMLA Connectivity for Alteryx

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

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Power BI XMLA" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Power BI XMLA.

   By default, use Azure AD to connect to Microsoft Power BI XMLA. Azure AD is Microsoft’s multi-tenant, cloud-based directory and identity management service. It is user-based authentication that requires that you set AuthScheme to AzureAD.

   For more information on other authentication schemes, refer to the Help documentation.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Power BI XMLA Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Connect to Power BI XMLA from Alteryx

Once you establish a connection to Power BI XMLA in Connect Cloud, you are ready to work with Power BI XMLA data in Alteryx. To begin, download the ODBC Driver for CData Connect.

1. In the ODBC Driver for CData Connect, select OAuth and click Test Connection. Then enter your CData Connect Cloud Credentials and Sign in.
2. Open Alteryx Designer and create a new workflow.
3. Drag and drop a new input data tool onto the workflow.
4. Click the drop down under Connect a File or Database and select the Data sources tab.
5. Navigate to the end of the page and click on ODBC under Generic connection.
6. Select the DSN that you configured for use in Alteryx.
7. In the wizard that opens, drag and drop the table to be queried in the Query Builder box. Select the fields by checking the boxes that you wish to include in your query. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to your data source, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed client-side by the CData SQL engine embedded in the connector.

To further customize the dataset, you can open the SQL Editor and modify the query manually, adding clauses, aggregations, and other operations to ensure that you are retrieving exactly the data desired.

With the query defined, you are ready to work with your data in Alteryx Designer.

Get CData Connect Cloud

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