Visualize Live SAP Business Warehouse Data in Power BI (via CData Connect AI)

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 use CData Connect to create a live connection to SAP Business Warehouse, connect to SAP Business Warehouse data from Power BI and then create reports on SAP Business Warehouse data in Power BI.

Configure SAP Business Warehouse Connectivity for Power BI

Connectivity to SAP Business Warehouse from Power BI is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with SAP Business Warehouse data from Power BI, 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 Power BI.

Query SAP Business Warehouse Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull SAP Business Warehouse data into the report:

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

Create SAP Business Warehouse 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.

Live Access to SAP Business Warehouse Data from Data Applications

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

To get SQL data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including SAP Business Warehouse) directly from your on-premise BI, reporting, ETL and other data applications, visit the CData Connect AI page and start a free trial.