Access Power BI XMLA Data in PHP through Connect Server

You can use CData Connect Server to access Power BI XMLA data from SQL Server clients, without needing to perform an ETL or cache data. Follow the steps below to create a virtual SQL Server database for Power BI XMLA and connect to Power BI XMLA data in real time through PHP's standard SQL Server interface, i.e. sqlsrv_connect.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Power BI XMLA, allowing you to easily build reports from live Power BI XMLA data in PHP — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, PHP generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Power BI XMLA, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Power BI XMLA data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Power BI XMLA Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "Power BI XMLA" from Available Data Sources.
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 Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to Power BI XMLA data from PHP.

Connect in PHP

The following examples show how to use object-oriented interfaces to connect and execute queries. Initialize the connection object with the following parameters to connect to the virtual SQL Server database:

• Server name/Host: Specify the remote host location where the service is running.
• Username: Specify the username for a user you authorized in Connect Server.
• Password: Specify the password for the authorized user account.
• Database Name: Specify the name of the virtual database you created for Power BI XMLA.
• Port: Specify the port the service is running on, port 1433 in this example.

sqlsrv_connect

<?php
$serverName = "connect_server_url, 1433"; //Connect Server Address, portNumber (default is 1433)
$connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"PowerBIXMLA1", "UID"=>"userName", "PWD"=>"password");
$conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo);

if( $conn ) {
     echo "Connection established.<br>";
}else{
     echo "Connection could not be established.<br>";
     die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}
?>

PDO

<?php
<?php
$user = my_connect_user
$pass = my_connect_pass

$pdo = new PDO("sqlsrv:Server=connect_server_url,1433;Database=PowerBIXMLA1", $user , $pass);

?>

Query in PHP

With the connection established, you can then access tables. The following steps walk through the example:

1. Query the table; for example, Customer. The results will be stored as an associative array in the $result object.
2. Iterate over each row and column, printing the values to display in the PHP page.
3. Close the connection.

sqlsrv_connect

$result = $sqlsrv_connect->query("SELECT Country, Education FROM Customer WHERE Country = 'Australia'");
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$sqlsrv_connect->close();

PDO

$result = $pdo->query("SELECT Country, Education FROM Customer WHERE Country = 'Australia'");
while($row = $result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$result = null;
$pdo = null;

SQL Server Access to Power BI XMLA Data using PHP

You have retrieved live Power BI XMLA Data using PHP. Now, you can easily access data sources and more — all without replicating Power BI XMLA data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect Server.