Automate API Calls in Power BI ?

[ydarra02]

I am looking for a way to make API Calls in Power BI through buttons or Power Automate which would call that specific data from database, but I can't connect my dashboard to the database directly I have to make an GET request via API that will send back the desired data to Power BI and then onto an already created dashboard with basic schema as it's base(i.e. saved in .pbit format link to data as per viewers request then show it). The database already has RLS implemented so users can view only the data available to them, and API returns data in json form

P.S. --> The database is not on any Microsoft platform, and not very experienced with Power BI as well😓

How should I go about it ??

I was looking into options for this and found either I use Power Automate or JavaScript or Python that does API Calling but didn't went too far

[ydarra02]

Well @Sahir_Maharaj your response does add a new option for me but if in case I use M Query,I have a few questions regarding that;
First, in the customer view when he/she will look at the dashbaord and they need to apply filters how would I pick those filters from slicers and take them as input for that M Query and use GET or PUSH API to get data and use that as base or source data for my dashboard ?
Secondly how will these API Resuests implementation work like what more will be needed to go ahead with this ?

[Sahir_Maharaj]

Hello @ydarra02,

Using Power Automate is likely the most user-friendly way to handle API calls and automate data refreshes. Power It can be easily created and managed without requiring extensive coding knowledge, and they can handle the API calls, parse the data, and trigger dataset refreshes in Power BI.

Alternatively, if you are open to using Power Query M code, you can directly make API calls from Power BI Desktop, though this requires some understanding of how to structure API requests and handle JSON data.

Whichever method you choose, ensure you have a valid authentication mechanism in place for API calls.

Hope this helps.