Create Power BI Reports on Real-Time SQL Analysis Services 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 SQL Analysis Services links your Power BI reports to operational SQL Analysis Services data. You can monitor SQL Analysis Services data through dashboards and ensure that your analysis reflects SQL Analysis Services 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 SQL Analysis Services data in Microsoft Power BI Desktop and then upload to Power BI.

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

Connect to SQL Analysis Services 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.

To connect, provide authentication and set the Url property to a valid SQL Server Analysis Services endpoint. You can connect to SQL Server Analysis Services instances hosted over HTTP with XMLA access. See the Microsoft documentation to configure HTTP access to SQL Server Analysis Services.

To secure connections and authenticate, set the corresponding connection properties, below. The data provider supports the major authentication schemes, including HTTP and Windows, as well as SSL/TLS.

• HTTP Authentication

  Set AuthScheme to "Basic" or "Digest" and set User and Password. Specify other authentication values in CustomHeaders.

• Windows (NTLM)

  Set the Windows User and Password and set AuthScheme to "NTLM".

• Kerberos and Kerberos Delegation

  To authenticate with Kerberos, set AuthScheme to NEGOTIATE. To use Kerberos delegation, set AuthScheme to KERBEROSDELEGATION. If needed, provide the User, Password, and KerberosSPN. By default, the data provider attempts to communicate with the SPN at the specified Url.

• SSL/TLS:

  By default, the data provider 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.

You can then access any cube as a relational table: When you connect the data provider retrieves SSAS metadata and dynamically updates the table schemas. Instead of retrieving metadata every connection, you can set the CacheLocation property to automatically cache to a simple file-based store.

See the Getting Started section of the CData documentation, under Retrieving Analysis Services Data, to execute SQL-92 queries to the cubes.

Create Data Visualizations

After creating an ODBC DSN, follow the steps below to connect to the SQL Analysis Services 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 SQL Analysis Services data with other data sources, pivot SQL Analysis Services columns, and more. Power BI detects each column's data type from the SQL Analysis Services 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 SQL Analysis Services 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 SQL Analysis Services data from Microsoft Power BI, or any applications that support ODBC connectivity, download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services. As always, our world-class support team is ready to answer any questions you may have.