How to use IBM App Connect with Microsoft Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is a unified, scalable BI platform that gives users capabilities for collecting, analysing, visualising, and sharing data. Power BI's user interface is fairly simple, allowing users to visualise any data and seamlessly integrate the visuals into the applications they use every day.
App Connect
Enterprise as a Service connector-
Local connector in
containers (Long Term Support Cycle-3 release) 13.0.7.0-r1 or
later 
Local
connector in containers (Continuous Delivery release) 12.0.7.0-r5 or
later-
Local connector in containers (Long Term Support Cycle-2 release)
Connecting to Microsoft Power BI
Complete the connection fields that you see in the App Connect Designer page or flow editor. If necessary, work with your Microsoft Power BI administrator to obtain these values.
| Authorization type | Connection fields | Applicability |
|---|---|---|
| Use the application's website to sign in (OAUTH 2.0 AUTH CODE) |
Tip: Authorize a connection to Microsoft
Power BI by signing
in to your account.
|
App Connect Enterprise as a Service |
| Provide a username, password, and client credentials (OAUTH 2.0 PASSWORD) | Username | App Connect Enterprise as a Service and App Connect in containers |
| Password | ||
| Client ID | ||
| Client secret | ||
| Provide client credentials (OAUTH 2.0 CREDENTIALS) | Client ID | App Connect Enterprise as a Service and App Connect in containers |
| Client secret | ||
| Tenant ID | ||
| Provide credentials for App Connect to use (BASIC OAUTH) | Client ID | App Connect Enterprise as a Service and App Connect in containers |
| Client secret | ||
| Access token | ||
| Refresh token |
| Connection field | Description |
|---|---|
| Username | The email address of your registered Microsoft Power BI account. |
| Password | The password for the specified username. |
| Client ID | The unique identifier generated after the Microsoft Azure app registration gets mapped to the specific project requests. |
| Client secret | The application client secret for the project-specific client ID. |
| Access token | The access token that is generated from the application client ID and client secret. |
| Refresh token | The refresh token that is generated from the application client ID and client secret. |
| Tenant ID | The identifier of your Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) tenant. Get the tenant ID from the Properties page of the Azure Active Directory portal. |
To obtain the connection values for Microsoft Power BI, see Obtaining connection values for Microsoft Power BI.
To connect to a Microsoft Power BI endpoint from the App Connect Designer Applications and APIs page for the first time, expand Microsoft Power BI, then click Connect. For more information about ways to connect to Microsoft Power BI, see Managing accounts in App Connect.
Before you use the account that is created in App Connect in a flow, rename the account to something meaningful that helps you to identify it. To rename the account on the Applications and APIs page, select the account, open its options menu (⋮), then click Rename Account.
General considerations
- To control the Microsoft Power BI features that are made available to your organization, see Tenant settings in the Microsoft documentation.
- To use the Admin API, see Developer tenant settings in the Microsoft documentation.
- To use service principals to use read-only Microsoft Power BI admin APIs, see Admin API tenant settings in the Microsoft documentation.
- (General consideration) You can see lists of the trigger events and
actions that are available on the Applications and APIs
page of the App Connect Designer.
For some applications, the events and actions depend on the environment and whether the connector supports configurable events and dynamic discovery of actions. If the application supports configurable events, you see a Show more configurable events link under the events list. If the application supports dynamic discovery of actions, you see a Show more link under the actions list.
- (General consideration) If you are using multiple accounts for an application, the set of fields that is displayed when you select an action for that application can vary for different accounts. In the flow editor, some applications always provide a curated set of static fields for an action. Other applications use dynamic discovery to retrieve the set of fields that are configured on the instance that you are connected to. For example, if you have two accounts for two instances of an application, the first account might use settings that are ready for immediate use. However, the second account might be configured with extra custom fields.
Events and actions
Microsoft Power BI events
These events are for changes in this application that trigger a flow to start completing the actions in the flow.
Microsoft Power BI actions
Your flow completes these actions on this application.
| Object | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Datasets | Add dataset user | Adds user to dataset user access |
| Bind to gateway | Binds dataset to gateway | |
| Delete dataset | Deletes a dataset | |
| Refresh dataset | Refreshes the dataset | |
| Retrieve dataset gateways | Retrieves the dataset gateways | |
| Retrieve dataset to dataflow links | Retrieves the dataset to dataflow links | |
| Retrieve dataset user access | Retrieves the dataset user access | |
| Retrieve datasets | Retrieves the datasets | |
| Update dataset | Updates the dataset | |
| Update dataset user access | Updates user from dataset user access | |
| Gateway data sources | Create gateway data source | Creates a gateway data source |
| Delete a gateway data source | Deletes a gateway data source | |
| Retrieve gateway data sources | Retrieves the gateway data sources | |
| Update gateway data source | Updates the gateway data source | |
| Goals | Create goal | Creates a goal |
| Create goal values | Creates the goal value | |
| Delete a goal values | Deletes goal value | |
| Delete current goal value connection | Deletes the current goal value connection | |
| Delete current target value connection | Deletes the current target value connection | |
| Delete goal | Deletes a goal | |
| Refresh current goal value | Refreshes the current goal value | |
| Refresh current target value | Refreshes the current target value | |
| Retrieve goal values | Retrieves the goal values | |
| Retrieve goals | Retrieves the goals | |
| Update goal | Updates the goal | |
| Update goal values | Updates the goal value | |
| Push datasets | Delete rows | Deletes the rows |
| Insert multiple rows | Inserts multiple rows | |
| Retrieve tables | Retrieves the tables | |
| Update table | Updates the table | |
| Workspaces | Add workspace user | Adds user to an workspace |
| Create workspace | Creates a workspace | |
| Delete workspace | Deletes a workspace | |
| Remove workspace user | Removes the user in workspace | |
| Retrieve workspaces | Retrieves the workspaces | |
| Retrieve workspace users | Retrieves the workspace users | |
| Update workspace user | Updates the user in workspace |
Examples
Use templates to quickly create flows for Microsoft Power BI
Learn how to use App Connect templates to quickly create flows that complete actions on Microsoft Power BI. For example, go to the Discover page and search for Microsoft Power BI.
Use IBM® App Connect to build flows that integrate with Microsoft Power BI.
Read the blog in the IBM Community to learn how to retrieve leads from Insightly and add the lead data to Microsoft Power BI. Click Read the blog to go to the blog.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) support
The Microsoft Power BI connector supports MCP, and all Microsoft Power BI actions for the listed objects can be added to an MCP server as tools. For more information on how to configure an MCP server, see Creating and managing MCP servers.