Connecting DAP to Power Bi dataflows

Hey folks

I've finally managed to wrestle all of my DAP queries into Power Bi dataflows, and it was quite an ordeal.

I'm currently using dataflows with DAP as a surrogate databasing solution as we do not currently have access to a SQL server that can store our info, otherwise I would probably be fetching this data using Python which is a lot less of a hassle.

The biggest challenge I faced trying to get this to work was the procedure of running an API call to trigger the job, and then getting the Power Query to poll the "get job" API until it completed it. I also had to store credentials in a less than desirable manner because Power Query doesn't allow you to do anything particularly creative with credential storage…. our previous LMS allowed us to have ready made reports I could just pull with the API directly using an API key, having to fetch a JWT token and having the reports time out certainly made it a lot more challenging.

Has anyone else managed this, or is in a situation where they have to use a less than desirable solution for data analytics with their organisation? I'd love to hear about your creative solutions!

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MelanJanecks37039013

Glad you brought this up! Connecting DAP to Dataflows can be a bit of a headache compared to the desktop version. I’ve found that the trick is to keep your initial query as 'lean' as possible - try to filter your date ranges directly in the API call before it hits Power BI. If the Dataflow keeps timing out, you might want to look at using a Data Gateway or staging the data in a SQL database first. It’s an extra step, but it’s much more stable than a direct API-to-Dataflow pull.

AllanBW

unfortunately Dataflows / PowerBi Powerquery are the only options I have! I found that it was actually more unstable with Desktop Bi too.

The problem I found was more the process of making the JWT, sending the query to start the report, then loading the report, I had to then use a janky power query 'pause' function to stop it from automatically trying to poll for the download link… I find it does work for the most part, but I still have occasional errors with refreshes every couple of days. I was hoping there was something that I was missing!

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