Power BI

Introduction

Solver includes a connector to Power BI. Through enabling this feature, a user with Power BI can create powerful dashboards in Power BI off their Solver data. The built-in API functionality transforms the data into a format that can be consumed by Power BI, allowing end-users to focus on creating dashboards and not on figuring out how to get the data out of Solver and into Power BI. 

The Solver External API is a purchased connector. Please contact your Partner or Solver if you wish to use this feature. 

Configuration

For Private Host customers, your Private Host site must be externally available in order to use the Solver External API.

Upon purchase, a user will be able to enable the feature. To enable the external API

  1. From the Data Warehouse > Configuration > API menu, enable the API
  1. A listing of all modules in the Data Warehouse will appear and is active. Click the checkbox next to the module(s) you wish the enable. 
  2. Click the save button in the upper right hand corner. A message will appear confirming successful save. 

This completes the setup for the Solver side. Next, open the PowerBI desktop app. This can be download from the Microsoft marketplace. 

  1. Upon load of the Power BI Desktop app, click Get Data. 
  1. In the menu that appears search the “All” category for Solver and click Connect
  2. You will be prompted to provide the API URL, this can be found back is the Solver External API page by clicking the Gear icon in the upper right hand corner. Paste this URL into the text box and click Ok
  3. Next you will be prompted for the API Token. Again this can be found back on the Solver External API page. Copy the token and paste it into the text box and click Connect.

Assuming that the information provided is correct, a listing will appear of all modules and dimensions that were made available. You have now successfully created a connection between Solver and PowerBI and are ready to make your first dashboard

Note: At this time, the API is available for Power BI and Tableau. It is not currently available for other applications. There are plans in place to also allow the API to be accessible by other external applications. The timeline is not determined just yet.