Forum Discussion
Salesforce objects live connections
The SalesForce Objects connector only supports Import Mode. Neither Live connection nor Direct Query mode are supported.
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I would recommend to use Salesforce Reports connector instead of Salesforce object. It is a lot faster to load . It is really the most convenient way of extracting data into Power BI since all your needed columns are in one table there.
Salesforce Object connector also sometimes takes ages to load the data. I used to wait for hours for a preview of my tables to load in Power Query.
It only allows you to extract 2000 rows though. However, you can work around this limitation using third-party tools. Here is the approach that I would recommend: https://vidi-corp.com/connect-salesforce-reports-to-power-bi/
That sounds like a lot of effort, and would require you to actually have a field that could be used for the chunking. Our reports usually run in the millions of rows, so chunking these into 2K pieces will get old quickly.
We use UTF-8 CSV exports of the reports, placed on a SharePoint. No row limits, fast ingestion from Power BI.
If you need better real time, use Salesforce Reports as they were intended.
The field that can be used for chunking is "date_updated" or "date_created". It isn't really a problem.
With the approach that I described data would be extracted using Python and blended in Azure before being loaded into the database. As a result, Azure would do the heavy lifting and not Power BI. Even if you have 500 chunks, Azure can handle it. Of course Power BI on it's own can not.Of course Power BI on it's own can not.One could think that. But it turns out that Power Query filters on the Salesforce Object connector in some scenarios do fold into SOQL queries (even with the "view native query" greyed out). You are right when it comes to Salesforce reports.