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AdministratorAdvanced

Connect Power BI to the Reporting API

Create a scoped read-only token, connect Power BI Desktop to your workspace data, and set up sustainable refresh.

Published

Outcome

A live Power BI report reading your workspace’s scheduling data through a scoped, revocable, read-only token — with refresh configured so it stays cheap.

Before you begin

  • The Admin role.
  • Reporting API availability: on SaaS it is “Available on Professional and Enterprise plans”; in Community it is always available. Check Administration → Integrations — if you see the upsell instead of the token list, your plan gates it.
  • Power BI Desktop (the flow is analogous for Excel’s Get Data → From Web and Metabase).

Step 1 — Create the token

  1. Open Administration → Integrations and choose New token.
  2. Name it after the consumer — Power BI Dashboard — never after a person.
  3. Set an Expiration — 90 days is a sound default; prefer rotation over No expiration.
  4. Create token, then copy immediately: “Copy this token now. It will not be shown again.” Store it in your secrets manager — “Anyone with it can read your workspace’s reporting data.”

The list now shows the token’s Prefix, Status, and — later — Last used, which is how you’ll recognize dead integrations.

Step 2 — Connect Power BI

Following the page’s own quick-start:

  1. In Power BI Desktop: Get Data → Web → Advanced.
  2. Set the URL to the reporting endpoint you need (the Integrations page shows example endpoint URLs for your workspace).
  3. Authenticate with the token as a bearer credential.
  4. Load, then model and visualize as usual — the API is read-only, so nothing you do in Power BI can touch the workspace.

Step 3 — Keep refresh incremental

The API supports incremental refresh via updatedSince — parameterize your query on it so scheduled refreshes pull only changes, not the full dataset. Your refresh schedule stays fast and the workspace unbothered.

Step 4 — Operate the token like the credential it is

  • Rotate before expiry: create the successor token, switch Power BI to it, then revoke the old one — zero-downtime rotation.
  • Revoke on retirement: “It will stop working immediately.” A dashboard nobody opens should not keep a live credential.
  • One consumer per token — when Excel joins later, it gets its own.
  • Creation and revocation land in the Audit log.