Import SAP Business Warehouse Data into the Power BI Service for Visualizations

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 AI, you get access to SAP Business Warehouse data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to SAP Business Warehouse in CData Connect AI, publish a dataset from Power BI Desktop to the Power BI Service and then create reports on SAP Business Warehouse data in the Power BI service.

Configure SAP Business Warehouse Connectivity for Power BI Service

Connectivity to SAP Business Warehouse from Power BI Service is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with SAP Business Warehouse data from Power BI Service, we start by creating and configuring a SAP Business Warehouse connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "SAP Business Warehouse" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAP Business Warehouse.

   To connect to SAP Business Warehouse, set the URL property to a valid SAP Business Warehouse server base URL. The driver must connect to SAP Business Warehouse instances hosted over HTTP with XMLA access.

   The driver supports the following authentication schemes via the AuthScheme property:

   • None: Anonymous authentication, if available on the server.
   • Basic: Set User and Password and set AuthScheme to Basic.
   • Kerberos: See the Using Kerberos section of the help documentation for the required Kerberos properties.

   By default, the driver attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store. To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SAP Business Warehouse Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to SAP Business Warehouse data from the Power BI service.

Publish a Dataset from Power BI Desktop

Once you connect to SAP Business Warehouse in Connect AI, you can create a dataset in Power BI desktop and publish the dataset to the Power BI service.

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Online Services -> CData Connect AI and click "Connect"
2. Click "Sign in" and authenticate with your CData Connect AI account
3. After signing in, click "Connect"
4. Select tables in the Navigator dialog
5. Click Load to establish the connection to your SAP Business Warehouse data from Power BI

6. Define any relationships between the selected entities on the Relationships tab.
7. Click Publish (from the Home menu) and select a Workspace.

Build Reports and Dashboards on SAP Business Warehouse Data in the Power BI Service

Now that you have published a dataset to the Power BI service, you can create new reports and dashboards based on the published data:

1. Log in to PowerBI.com.
2. Click Workspaces and select a workspace.
3. Click Create and select Report.
4. Select the published dataset for the report.
5. Choose fields and visualizations to add to your report.

Live Access to SAP Business Warehouse Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live SAP Business Warehouse data from the Power BI service. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating SAP Business Warehouse data.

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect AI.