Load data into Power BI Desktop

In this tutorial, you load a table from the data service into Power BI Desktop. Power BI reads the service's OData interface directly; you don't need an ODBC driver for it. You sign in with your personal key, which Power BI keeps in its own credential store, not in the report. This page covers Power BI Desktop; it doesn't describe refresh in the Power BI service (cloud).

• Power BI Desktop
• the service address as in step 4 of the set-up guide, here https://daten.example.com, with a certificate the computer trusts
• the name of the data source (alias) and the schema, here fachdaten and dbo; your Gateway administrator gives you both
• a personal key with read access. If the sign-in policy requires a second factor for you, you need a key without a second factor, because Power BI can't ask for a code; see Notes

In Power BI Desktop, select Home > Get data > OData feed. If it isn't in the short list, select Get data > More… > Other > OData feed, then Connect.

Under URL, enter the address of the data source with its schema and select OK:

https://daten.example.com/odata/v4/fachdaten/dbo/

Power BI asks how to sign in to the address.

1. On the left, select Basic.
2. Enter pkuser as the User name and your personal key (wkl_…) as the Password.
3. Under Select which level to apply these settings to, choose the service address without a path (https://daten.example.com/), so the sign-in applies to every data source of this service.
4. Select Connect.

The user name pkuser is a convention: the service recognizes the key by its form, not by the name. In Power BI's credential store, you can then see at a glance that a personal key is stored there; see HTTP: sign-in.

The Navigator shows the tables and views you may read. Select a table, such as Artikel, check the preview on the right, and select Load.

To load only some of the rows, select Transform Data instead of Load and filter in the Power Query editor. Power BI sends the filter to the service; the database filters, not Power BI.

The table appears in the Data pane with its columns, and you can build visuals from it. Refresh reads the current data from the database.

• Second factor: Power BI can't ask for a second-factor code. If the sign-in policy requires a second factor for you, sign-in fails. Your Gateway administrator then issues you a key with the purpose Arbeitsplatz (Workstation) and selects Nur lesen (Read only) and Ohne zweiten Faktor (No second factor) in its form: „Create a person and issue a key“ (documentation of the administration app).
• Change or remove the key: Select File > Options and settings > Data source settings, choose the service address, and select Edit Permissions… or Clear Permissions.
• Read only: Power BI reads data; you can change data through Access with the ODBC driver if your rule allows it.

• Set-up guide: from an empty server to data in Access, Excel, and Power BI
• Do I need the ODBC driver?
• Load data into Excel with Power Query—the same way in Excel
• HTTP: OData v4 (reference)—what Power BI passes on to the service