Work with Live Azure Active Directory Data in Power Query

Power Query is a data transformation and data preparation engine. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Azure Active Directory data from Power Query. This article shows how to connect to Connect Cloud from Power Query through Microsoft Excel and get live access to Azure Active Directory data for transformation and preparation.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for Azure Active Directory, allowing you to easily integrate with live Azure Active Directory data in Power Query — without replicating the data. CData Connect Cloud looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Query and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Azure Active Directory, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Azure Active Directory data.

Configure Azure Active Directory Connectivity for Power Query

Connectivity to Azure Active Directory from Power Query is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Azure Active Directory data from Power Query, we start by creating and configuring a Azure Active Directory connection.

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

   Azure Active Directory uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties. See the OAuth section in the Help documentation for an authentication guide.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Azure Active Directory Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Azure Active Directory data from Power Query.

Working with Live Azure Active Directory Data in Power Query

With the connection to Connect Cloud configured, you are ready to work with live Azure Active Directory data in Power Query.

1. In Microsoft Excel, open the Power Query Editor (from the Data ribbon, click Get Data -> Launch Power Query Editor)
2. Click New Source -> SQL Server
3. In the SQL Server database modal:
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333
   • (Optional) Set Database to the name of the Azure Active Directory connection (e.g. AzureAD1 )
4. In the SQL Server credentials modal, select "Database" and
   • Set User to your Connect Cloud username (e.g. user@mydomain.com )
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
5. Click Connect
6. Select the table(s) you wish to work with in the Navigator and click "OK"

At this point, you have live access to Azure Active Directory data from Power Query for transformation and preparation.

SQL Access to Azure Active Directory Data

Now you have a direct connection to live Azure Active Directory data from Microsoft Power Query. You can create more connections and transform and preparte your data to better drive business — all without replicating Azure Active Directory data.

To get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect Cloud.