Build Visualizations of Live Harvest Data in Power BI (through CData Connect)

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 (on-premise or in the cloud), you get access to Harvest data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to use CData Connect to create a virtual database for Harvest, connect to Harvest data into Power BI and then create reports on Harvest data in Power BI.

Create a Virtual SQL Database for Harvest Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "Harvest" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Harvest.

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

   Harvest API Profile Settings

   To authenticate to Harvest, you can use either Token authentication or the OAuth standard. Use Basic authentication to connect to your own data. Use OAuth to allow other users to connect to their data.

   Using Token Authentication

   To use Token Authentication, set the APIKey to your Harvest Personal Access Token in the ProfileSettings connection property. In addition to APIKey, set your AccountId in ProfileSettings to connect.

   Using OAuth Authentication

   First, register an OAuth2 application with Harvest. The application can be created from the "Developers" section of Harvest ID.

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

   • ProfileSettings: Set your AccountId in ProfileSettings.
   • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
   • OAuthClientId: Set this to the client ID that you specified in your app settings.
   • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret that you specified in your app settings.
   • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that you specified in your app settings.
   • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage how the driver obtains and refreshes the OAuthAccessToken.
4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to and visualize Harvest from Power BI.

Query Harvest Tables

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

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Other -> SQL Server and click "Connect"
2. Set Server to the address and port of your CData Connect instance (localhost:8033 by default) and set Database to the name of the virtual database you just created (API1)
3. Use "Database" authentication, enter the credentials for a CData Connect user and click "Connect"
4. Select tables in the Navigator dialog
5. Click Load to import the data into Power BI

Create Harvest 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.

SQL Access to Harvest Data from Data Applications

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

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including Harvest) directly from your on-premise BI, reporting, ETL and other data applications, visit the CData Connect page and download a free trial.