INT PH/Cloud Getting Started: PowerBI API – Solver Support

Summary:

This article details Solver's integration to PowerBI. The steps mentioned here are related to the Solver Cloud and Private Host applications.

This feature enables customers to Quickly load data from the Data Warehouse into PowerBI. With a simple click, you can enable module(s) and their associated dimensions to be accessible within PowerBI.

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In order to integrate Solver with PowerBI, the following is needed:

Solver Cloud Users:

Purchase of the PowerBI Connector. Please contact your sales person if you have not purchased this connector.
Enable the external API from within the Data Warehouse Manager application.

Solver Private Host Users:

Purchase of the PowerBI Connector. Please contact your sales person if you have not purchased this connector
Enable the external API from within the Data Warehouse Manager application.
Ensure that your Private Host site is publically available.
- It is STRONGLY recommended that organizations that are making their site publically available have installed as SSL certificate and are using secured connections.
For organizations with strict firewall rules, you'll need to make sure to whitelist PowerBI's URLs, documented here.

Solver PowerBI Connector does not include a PowerBI license, PowerBI Desktop or end user licensing. Prebuilt and/or dashboard training, dashboards are to be created by the end user.

Additionally, please reference your PowerBI subscription plan for details on how much data you can load from Solver Cloud into PowerBI. The subscription plan purchased determines the amount of data that can be loaded from Solver to PowerBI.

Setup

Setup is a two step process.

Enable the PowerBI connector.
Connect PowerBI Desktop to the PowerBI endpoint that was createded in step 1.

PowerBI API Setup

For organizations who have purchased PowerBI, setup is quick and simple.

Log into Solver
From the Data Warehouse menu, click on Configuration >> API.
Click the toggle, to enable (green) the PowerBI connector. If you are unable to do so, your organization has not purchased the API connector and/or you need to update your license key.
Select the module(s) to be made available to PowerBI. The connector will automatically make the relevant dimensions available.
Click Save.

Clicking on the Gear Icon, you will see an External URL and Access token string. We will be using these in the next section.

You have now successfully enabled the PowerBI connector.

PowerBI Desktop Setup

Open PowerBI Desktop and click Get Data. There are two places where this action can be done.
In the list that appears, find the "Solver" data source and click Connect.
You will be prompted for a URL and an Access Token. Copy and paste the relevant information from the Gear icon from within the PowerBI API setup menu and click OK
PowerBI will connect and display all available modules.
Select the modules (check the box) to be loaded into PowerBI and click Load.

You have now started a data load between Solver and PowerBI. Users can schedule this refresh to happen so that the dashboards have the latest information from within PowerBI.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the external API (PowerBI) be consumed by other applications? >> at this time it cannot
How do I share a PowerBI Dashboard? >> Please reference PowerBI's documentation on Best Practices for sharing a dashboard.
Does Solver's API create dashboards for me? >> Dashboards must be created by the user, Solver does not have Dashboard templates.
My data and/or labels do not look correct? >>
- Refresh the data
- If the above does not work, from within Solver DW >> Configuration >> API disable and re-enable the module >> Save and see if this properly refreshes the data.
My data refresh takes a long time >> Depending on the amount of data you are loading, data refreshes can take some time. If it is taking a long time, please contact Solver Support

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