Create Power BI Reports on Real-Time IBM Cloud Object Storage Data

With built-in support for ODBC on Microsoft Windows, the CData ODBC Drivers provide self-service integration with self-service analytics tools such as Microsoft Power BI. The CData ODBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage links your Power BI reports to operational IBM Cloud Object Storage data. You can monitor IBM Cloud Object Storage data through dashboards and ensure that your analysis reflects IBM Cloud Object Storage data in real time by scheduling refreshes or refreshing on demand. This article details how to use the ODBC driver to create real-time visualizations of IBM Cloud Object Storage data in Microsoft Power BI Desktop and then upload to Power BI.

The CData ODBC Drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live IBM Cloud Object Storage data in Power BI due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from Power BI to IBM Cloud Object Storage, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to IBM Cloud Object Storage 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 IBM Cloud Object Storage data using native Power BI data types.

Connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Register a New Instance of Cloud Object Storage

If you do not already have Cloud Object Storage in your IBM Cloud account, follow the procedure below to install an instance of SQL Query in your account:

1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
2. Navigate to the page, choose a name for your instance and click Create. You will be redirected to the instance of Cloud Object Storage you just created.

Connecting using OAuth Authentication

There are certain connection properties you need to set before you can connect. You can obtain these as follows:

API Key

To connect with IBM Cloud Object Storage, you need an API Key. You can obtain this as follows:

1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
2. Navigate to the Platform API Keys page.
3. On the middle-right corner click "Create an IBM Cloud API Key" to create a new API Key.
4. In the pop-up window, specify the API Key name and click "Create". Note the API Key as you can never access it again from the dashboard.

Cloud Object Storage CRN

If you have multiple accounts, specify the CloudObjectStorageCRN explicitly. To find the appropriate value, you can:

• Query the Services view. This will list your IBM Cloud Object Storage instances along with the CRN for each.
• Locate the CRN directly in IBM Cloud. To do so, navigate to your IBM Cloud Dashboard. In the Resource List, Under Storage, select your Cloud Object Storage resource to get its CRN.

Connecting to Data

You can now set the following to connect to data:

• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
• ApiKey: Set this to your API key which was noted during setup.
• CloudObjectStorageCRN (Optional): Set this to the cloud object storage CRN you want to work with. While the connector attempts to retrieve this automatically, specifying this explicitly is recommended if you have more than Cloud Object Storage account.

When you connect, the connector completes the OAuth process.

1. Extracts the access token and authenticates requests.
2. Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation to be persisted across connections.

Create Data Visualizations

After creating an ODBC DSN, follow the steps below to connect to the IBM Cloud Object Storage ODBC DSN from Power BI Desktop:

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> More... to open the Get Data window.
2. In the Get Data window select Other -> ODBC to open the next window.
3. Select the DSN in the menu. If you know the SQL query you want to use to import data, you can expand the Advanced options node and enter the query in the SQL Statement box. Otherwise, click OK to continue.
4. Choose Default or Custom as the authentication option and click Connect.
5. Select tables in the Navigator dialog.

6. Click Transform Data to edit the query. The table you imported is displayed in the Power Query Editor. In the Power Query Editor, you can enrich your local copy of IBM Cloud Object Storage data with other data sources, pivot IBM Cloud Object Storage columns, and more. Power BI detects each column's data type from the IBM Cloud Object Storage metadata retrieved by the driver.

   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 IBM Cloud Object Storage data. When you click Close and Apply, Power BI executes the data retrieval query.

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

Create Data Visualizations

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 (Salesforce shown):

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

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.

Free Trial & More Information

If you are interested in connecting to your IBM Cloud Object Storage data from Microsoft Power BI, or any applications that support ODBC connectivity, download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage. As always, our world-class support team is ready to answer any questions you may have.