Connecting Power Bi to Big Query using Direct Query

[rggregori]

I have most of my big tables (tables with over 200 M records) sitting at Google's Big Query servers and would like to use Power Bi (Desktop) for doing analytics. Found Simba´s ODBC driver, installed and configured and gained access to the datasets, but Power Bi is not giving a choice for Direct Querying the data. Instead, is trying to download it, which of course will not do it, firstly because of storage limitations on the client side, but mostly because the only reason I have the data at Big Query is to be able to use Google´s processing power. Simba´s driver specs says it should allow Direct Querying (called Direct BI) but that did not work for me.

Has anyone out there ever tried to connect BQ from Power Bi? If so could direct querying? Have any ideas or suggestion for doing this without transferring the data?

BTW, Tableau provides a Big Query  connection and allows direct query nicely, a feature I would love to see at Power BI soon.

Thanks

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @rggregori,

Currently, supported data source to use DirectQuery mode neither include Google's Big Query or ODBC, you can see: Use DirectQuery in Power BI Desktop.

In your scenario, you can try to import data into SQL Server database then use Power BI desktop get data from SQL Server database use DirectQuery mode.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[rggregori]

I have most of my big tables (tables with over 200 M records) sitting at Google's Big Query servers and would like to use Power Bi (Desktop) for doing analytics. Found Simba´s ODBC driver, installed and configured and gained access to the datasets, but Power Bi is not giving a choice for Direct Querying the data. Instead, is trying to download it, which of course will not do it, firstly because of storage limitations on the client side, but mostly because the only reason I have the data at Big Query is to be able to use Google´s processing power. Simba´s driver specs says it should allow Direct Querying (called Direct BI) but that did not work for me.

Has anyone out there ever tried to connect BQ from Power Bi? If so could direct querying? Have any ideas or suggestion for doing this without transferring the data?

BTW, Tableau provides a Big Query  connection and allows direct query nicely, a feature I would love to see at Power BI soon.

Thanks

[hugoberry]

Don't know how much time you have on your hands but it's worth trying to create a Direct Query connection in a SSAS tabular, just to confirm that this could actually work in Power BI. And then you might trick Power BI into connecting to Big Query via Simba's connector.