Access Live Power BI XMLA Data in Excel (Desktop)

Microsoft Excel is a widely used spreadsheet software application, primarily used for tasks related to data management, analysis, and visualization. When combined with CData Connect Cloud, you gain immediate access to Power BI XMLA data directly within Excel, facilitating data analysis, collaboration, calculations, and more.This article shows how to connect to Power BI XMLA in your Connect Cloud instance and access live Power BI XMLA data in Excel spreadsheets.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Power BI XMLA, allowing you to easily access live Power BI XMLA data in Excel for the web. Simply use the Connect Cloud Add-In to query live data (or write your own). Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported query operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Power BI XMLA, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Power BI XMLA data.

Configure Power BI XMLA Connectivity for Excel

Connectivity to Power BI XMLA from Excel is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Power BI XMLA data from Excel, we start by creating and configuring a Power BI XMLA connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Power BI XMLA" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Power BI XMLA.

   By default, use Azure AD to connect to Microsoft Power BI XMLA. Azure AD is Microsoft’s multi-tenant, cloud-based directory and identity management service. It is user-based authentication that requires that you set AuthScheme to AzureAD.

   For more information on other authentication schemes, refer to the Help documentation.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Power BI XMLA Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Power BI XMLA data from Excel.

Access Live Power BI XMLA Data in Excel

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Excel to access live Power BI XMLA data.

1. Open Excel, create a new sheet (or open an existing one).
2. Click Insert and click Get Add-ins. (if you have already installed the Add-In, jump to step 4).
3. Search for CData Connect Cloud Add-In and install the Add-in.
4. Click Data and open the CData Connect Cloud Add-In.
5. In the Add-In panel, click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud instance
6. In the CData Connect Cloud panel in Excel, click Import
7. Choose a Connection (e.g. PowerBIXMLA1), Table (e.g. Customer), and Columns to import
8. Optionally add Filters, Sorting, and a Limit
9. Click Execute to import the data

Live Access to Power BI XMLA Data from Cloud Applications

New, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Power BI XMLA data from your Excel workbook. You can add more data to your workbook for calculations, aggregations, collaboration, and more.

Try CData Connect Cloud and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.