Power bi Desktop vs Xero

[fabiolamelo]

Hi everyone,

Is there are any solution that I can connect the Xero data on power bi desktop for free?

I know that there is an app on power bi service to connect it with Xero data. However,  all connectors that I found to connect Xero data on power bi desktop are paid. Is there are any solution for free?

Thanks in advance.

Fabi

[Jeff_Acc_Addons]

Hi Fabio

https://odatalink.com has a free edition which works on the desktop. The free edition quite limited including a cap to 5 end points though

Jeff

[gdbaerg · Accepted solution]

Hi Fabi, there are a couple of options that you could pursue.  

1. Create a thin report in Power BI desktop connected to the default Xero App in the Power BI service.  First you would log into the Xero app in the Power BI service.  Then in Power BI desktop, you would establish a live connection this Xero report in the service using: Get Data->Power BI datasets, and then connect to the Xero report.  You can then use the existing data model to build your own reports within Power BI desktop.  You will be quite limited in terms of editing the data model, but would have the ability to create measures using the data that is pulled in.  Data model shown below:


2.  A better recommendation would be to set up Power Automate to handle your OAuth2 connection in Xero, and pipe the data out to a data sink like SQL, Sharepoint or OneDrive.  Power Automate can be very effective at OAuth2 via custom connectors and needs no code to set up.  The process would involve creating an app in the Xero developer portal,  setting up your OAuth2 authentication details in the Power Automate custom connector (Client id, Client secret, Authorization URL, Scope) and creating an action to get to data.  Then this custom connector can be used in a Flow.  Example:  Manually trigger a flow -> Get Xero Invoices (custom connection) -> Parse JSON -> create file in OneDrive.  

There are other options including building out a custom connector, but these would be 2 quick ways to get started.