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amaasen's avatar
amaasen
Frequent Visitor
1 year ago
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API Connection Question

I've tried to create a PowerBI connection to the API I was provided by our vendor, but it keeps timing out. Any suggetions on how to achieve an API connection with the details below?     
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  • amaasen's avatar
    amaasen
    1 year ago

    Still an issue with even reporting 1 days worth of data. I spoke with the vendor and we are going to try alternative methods. 

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
1 year ago

Hi amaasen ,

It looks like the timeout issue isn’t on your end, especially if the query works in Postman but not in Power BI. Power BI struggles with APIs that use session-based or slower response mechanisms. Here are a few practical steps:

Verify in Postman – If it’s fast there, the API is fine.
Reduce the date range – Start with 1 day to check performance.
Use token-based auth – If the API relies on sessions/cookies, Power BI won’t handle it well. Ask the vendor if they can switch to token-based or give a static export endpoint.
Custom timeout in Power Query – You can use Timeout=#duration(0,0,30,0) in Web.Contents() to extend it, but if the API takes too long, Power BI will still fail.

If even a single-day query times out, it’s likely an API performance or authentication issue on the provider side. In that case, pushing the vendor for an optimized endpoint or a bulk data export might be the best route.

Regards,
Akhil.