How to connect your data in Power BI to third party vendor

[Djordje_M]

Power BI is one of the best complete visualization and BI tools. It is my favorite, at least. When you have all that power, it is vital to have a comprehensive data source and organize it as best as possible. For that purpose, you will use your CRM or ERP solution, and for all external data sources, you will try to collect them from Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and many other sources. It is a challenging and time-consuming task. Fortunately, there is a software platform that can do this task for you. Not only that, but some of them will also do the data analysis and intelligence on finding the meaning of the data, trends, and critical points.

Microsoft AppSource enables you to find and install business applications to enhance the functionality of Microsoft products. In the Power BI section, you can find a lot of Apps developed by various vendors. Their focus is to ease the use of their services and make the most of the many different integrations.

I am especially interested in Power BI visualizations made by taking the marketing and SEO data and putting them into your business context. It is best to have some service that successfully collects such data and organizes them in a structured and timely manner.

While integration is almost always effortless, I have encountered some problems that I would like to describe here and help others avoid them. This post will include the Desktop version procedures as well, as I discovered that companies allow only a Desktop version in their organizations. I don’t think this stance is helpful, but we can discuss it in some of the next posts.

One of them is Windsor.ai. In their example, I will show how to connect data from a third-party vendor to your Power BI.

Using third party vendor templates and data source space

If you find a template that you like, both visually and more importantly, you can connect your data by the data selection. For all third-party vendors, you will need to register and allow those platforms to collect your data from many sources. Some of the vendors are offering a free plan or at least a free trial.

When you apply to connect your data, you will be asked to register. After that, it is time to connect your data. That means to grant access to your social and other accounts from where you want the data to be collected. They have many possible connectors so that you will be able to connect to almost all of your data.

Pay attention to follow the instructions on the screen, especially for Google Analytics, where you need to define the goals if you want to use extended AI features.

Registering and granting access

You will be assigned a username and API key that you would need to connect your data, together with the password you set at registration.

This process is similar to any other third-party provider or platform, and these instructions, in a broad sense, will help you to connect to any similar data source.

Connecting your data

When you get a template from the third-party vendor, you will first be given a demo data. When you connect to their database and submit your data, then you can use this source for your Power BI reports. You will likely get detailed instructions on how to do that, but here is an overview of the steps you should take.

Connecting your data to PBI desktop

For Power BI desktop, you need to connect your data through the Get Data option and enter credentials (given by your data source provider) and choose tables you want to import.

If you are using a third-party provider, you will likely choose geta data from the web option, unless instructed otherwise. Then just follow the instruction as you will do for your data sources.

Connecting your data in Power BI Services

Here you can select your dataset and enter your credentials and parameter. Both will be given to you by your data source provider. The basics settings are shown in the picture below.

Further steps

It is just the beginning of the Power BI reports journey. I have used this approach in some of my reports I have published in Power BI Data Stories Gallery, and I invite you to check them out. If you prefer to use the .pibx version, I am attaching one at the end of the post.

Please let me know if this post was clear enough and provided you with the information you need to connect to your data using a third-party vendor template. I will be happy to update this article with the necessary details. Also, you can check for more information on my blog.

Media Overview Report.pbix