How to Create Power BI Visual Reports with Real-Time Oracle Eloqua Reporting Data

CData Power BI Connectors provide self-service integration with Microsoft Power BI. The CData Power BI Connector for Oracle Eloqua Reporting links your Power BI reports to real-time Oracle Eloqua Reporting data. You can monitor Oracle Eloqua Reporting data through dashboards and ensure that your analysis reflects Oracle Eloqua Reporting 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 Oracle Eloqua Reporting data in Microsoft Power BI Desktop.

If you are interested in publishing reports on Oracle Eloqua Reporting 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 Oracle Eloqua Reporting data in Power BI due to optimized data processing built into the connector. When you issue complex SQL queries from Power BI to Oracle Eloqua Reporting, the connector pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Oracle Eloqua Reporting 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 Oracle Eloqua Reporting data using native Power BI data types.

Connect to Oracle Eloqua Reporting as a Power BI Data Source

Installing the Power BI Connector creates a DSN (data source name) called CData Power BI Oracle Eloqua Reporting. 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.

Oracle Eloqua Reporting supports the following authentication methods:

• Basic authentication (User and Password)
• OAuth 2.0 code grant flow
• OAuth 2.0 password grant flow

Basic Authentication (User and Password)

To perform authentication with a user and password, specify these properties:

• AuthScheme: Basic.
• Company: The company name associated with your Oracle Eloqua Reporting account.
• User: Your login account name.
• Password: Your login password.

OAuth Authentication (Code Grant Flow)

To authenticate with the OAuth code grant flow, you must set AuthScheme to OAuth and create a custom OAuth application. For information about how to create a custom OAuth application, see the Help documentation.

Then set the following properties:

• InitiateOAuth: GETANDREFRESH. Used to automatically get and refresh the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientId: The client Id assigned when you registered your application.
• OAuthClientSecret: The client secret that was assigned when you registered your application.
• CallbackURL: The redirect URI that was defined when you registered your application.

When you connect, the driver opens Oracle Eloqua Reporting's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. When the access token expires, the driver refreshes it automatically.

OAuth Authentication (Password Grant Flow)

With the OAuth password grant flow, you can use your OAuth application's credentials alongside your user credentials to authenticate without the need to grant permission manually via a browser prompt. You must create an OAuth app (see the Help documentation) to use this authentication method.

Set the following properties:

• AuthScheme: OAuthPassword
• Company: The company's unique identifier.
• User: Your login account name.
• Password: Your login password.
• OAuthClientId: The client Id assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.
• OAuthClientSecret: The client secret assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.

How to Query Oracle Eloqua Reporting Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull Oracle Eloqua Reporting data into the report:

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Other -> CData OracleEloquaReporting.
2. Select CData PowerBI Oracle Eloqua Reporting 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 Oracle Eloqua Reporting 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 Oracle Eloqua Reporting 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 Oracle Eloqua Reporting 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, .
3. Select a measure in the Fields pane: for example, .

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 Oracle Eloqua Reporting data. Learn more about the CData Power BI Connectors for Oracle Eloqua Reporting and download a free trial from the CData Power BI Connector for Oracle Eloqua Reporting page. Let our Support Team know if you have any questions.