How to Create Power BI Visual Reports with Real-Time ApprovalMax Data

CData Power BI Connectors provide self-service integration with Microsoft Power BI. The CData API Driver for Power BI links your Power BI reports to real-time ApprovalMax data. You can monitor ApprovalMax data through dashboards and ensure that your analysis reflects ApprovalMax data in real time by scheduling refreshes or refreshing on demand. This article details how to use the Power BI Connector to create real-time visualizations of ApprovalMax data in Microsoft Power BI Desktop.

If you are interested in publishing reports on ApprovalMax data to PowerBI.com, refer to our other Knowledge Base article.

Collaborative Query Processing

The CData Power BI Connectors offer unmatched performance for interacting with live ApprovalMax data in Power BI due to optimized data processing built into the connector. When you issue complex SQL queries from Power BI to ApprovalMax, the connector pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to ApprovalMax and utilizes the embedded SQL Engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze ApprovalMax data using native Power BI data types.

Connect to ApprovalMax as a Power BI Data Source

Installing the Power BI Connector creates a DSN (data source name) called CData Power BI ApprovalMax. This the name of the DSN that Power BI uses to request a connection to the data source. Configure the DSN by filling in the required connection properties.

You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure the DSN: From the Start menu, enter "ODBC Data Sources" and select the CData PowerBI REST DSN. Ensure that you run the version of the ODBC Administrator that corresponds to the bitness of your Power BI Desktop installation (32-bit or 64-bit). You can also use run the ConfigureODBC.exe tool located in the installation folder for the connector.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the ApprovalMax Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\ApprovalMax.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for ApprovalMax (see below).

ApprovalMax API Profile Settings

To authenticate to ApprovalMax and connect to your own data or to allow other users to connect to their data, the ApprovalMax Public API requires the OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow.

First, you will need to register an OAuth application with ApprovalMax. Sign in to the ApprovalMax Developer Portal (https://developer.approvalmax.com/applications) and create a new application. Your OAuth application will be assigned a Client ID and a Client Secret, and you must register at least one Redirect URI (Callback URL).

A Premium ApprovalMax subscription (or active trial) is required to use the Public API.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client ID that is shown in your application settings on the ApprovalMax Developer Portal.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the Client Secret that is shown in your application settings on the ApprovalMax Developer Portal.
• CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that is registered in your application settings.
• Scope: (Optional) Override the default OAuth scopes. The default value openid offline_access https://www.approvalmax.com/scopes/public_api/read grants read-only access to all tables in this profile and enables refresh tokens. Use the principle of least privilege when narrowing this scope.

The OAuth Authorization URL is https://identity.approvalmax.com/connect/authorize and the Token URL is https://identity.approvalmax.com/connect/token. Both authorization_code and refresh_token grant types are supported.

How to Query ApprovalMax Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull ApprovalMax data into the report:

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Other -> CData API.
2. Select CData PowerBI ApprovalMax in the Data Source Name menu and select a data connectivity mode:
   Select Import if you want to import a copy of the data into your project. You can refresh this data on demand.
   Select DirectQuery if you want to work with the remote data.
3. Select tables in the Navigator dialog.

4. In the Query Editor, you can customize your dataset by filtering, sorting, and summarizing ApprovalMax columns. Click Edit to open the query editor. Right-click a row to filter the rows. Right-click a column header to perform actions like the following:

   • Change column data types
   • Remove a column
   • Group by columns

   Power BI detects each column's data type from the ApprovalMax metadata retrieved by the connector.

   Power BI records your modifications to the query in the Applied Steps section, adjusting the underlying data retrieval query that is executed to the remote ApprovalMax data. When you click Close and Apply, Power BI executes the data retrieval query.

   Otherwise, click Load to pull the data into Power BI.

How to Create Data Visualizations in Power BI

After pulling the data into Power BI, you can create data visualizations in the Report view by dragging fields from the Fields pane onto the canvas. Follow the steps below to create a pie chart:

1. Select the pie chart icon in the Visualizations pane.
2. Select a dimension in the Fields pane: for example, UserId.
3. Select a measure in the Fields pane: for example, Email.

You can change sort options by clicking the ellipsis (...) button for the chart. Options to select the sort column and change the sort order are displayed.

You can use both highlighting and filtering to focus on data. Filtering removes unfocused data from visualizations; highlighting dims unfocused data. You can highlight fields by clicking them:

You can apply filters at the page level, at the report level, or to a single visualization by dragging fields onto the Filters pane. To filter on the field's value, select one of the values that are displayed in the Filters pane.

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

At this point, you will have a Power BI report built on top of live ApprovalMax data. Learn more about the CData Power BI Connectors for ApprovalMax and download a free trial from the CData API Driver for Power BI page. Let our Support Team know if you have any questions.