Build Visualizations of Live XML Data in Power BI (through CData Connect)

Power BI transforms your company's data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. When paired with CData Connect (on-premise or in the cloud), you get access to XML data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to use CData Connect to create a virtual database for XML, connect to XML data into Power BI and then create reports on XML data in Power BI.

Create a Virtual SQL Database for XML 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 "XML" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to XML.

   See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation to authenticate to your data source: The data provider models XML APIs as bidirectional database tables and XML files as read-only views (local files, files stored on popular cloud services, and FTP servers). The major authentication schemes are supported, including HTTP Basic, Digest, NTLM, OAuth, and FTP. See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation for authentication guides.

   After setting the URI and providing any authentication values, set DataModel to more closely match the data representation to the structure of your data.

   The DataModel property is the controlling property over how your data is represented into tables and toggles the following basic configurations.

   • Document (default): Model a top-level, document view of your XML data. The data provider returns nested elements as aggregates of data.
   • FlattenedDocuments: Implicitly join nested documents and their parents into a single table.
   • Relational: Return individual, related tables from hierarchical data. The tables contain a primary key and a foreign key that links to the parent document.

   See the Modeling XML Data chapter for more information on configuring the relational representation. You will also find the sample data used in the following examples. The data includes entries for people, the cars they own, and various maintenance services performed on those cars.

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 and visualize XML from Power BI.

Query XML Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull XML data into the report:

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Other -> SQL Server and click "Connect"
2. Set Server to the address and port of your CData Connect instance (localhost:8033 by default) and set Database to the name of the virtual database you just created (XML1)
3. Use "Database" authentication, enter the credentials for a CData Connect user and click "Connect"
4. Select tables in the Navigator dialog
5. Click Load to import the data into Power BI

Create XML Data Visualizations

After connecting to the data into Power BI, you can create data visualizations in the Report view by dragging fields from the Fields pane onto the canvas. Select the dimensions and measures you wish to visualize along with the chart type.

Click Refresh to synchronize your report with any changes to the data.

SQL Access to XML Data from Data Applications

With CData Connect you have a direct connection to XML data from Power BI. You can import more data, create new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating XML data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including XML) directly from your on-premise BI, reporting, ETL and other data applications, visit the CData Connect page and download a free trial.