Forum Discussion
DO I need Visual studio and Power Query SDK to connect Power BI report to On-Premise SQL server???
I have read through the documents, and this is what I gather from documentation and watching some videos:
1. You have to download install the gateway. (which I already have done- On-premises data gateway)
2. Gateway is just a program, which uses the "connectors" folder, and looks for connectors in this folder. (gateway by itself will not connect).
3. In order to create a connector, you need to have "PowerQuery SDK", which is an add-on to the Visual Studio
4. You also have to use "M Language" to create a custom connector. The process involves creating the connector and doing a "Build", and once you build, you put those files in the "connectors" folder, which will be used by the gateway.
Let me know if I have got it wrong.
Community SupportHi Anonymous
It seems you referred to documents for custom connectors instead of documents for SQL Server Database connector. Power BI has a built-in connector for SQL Server, so you can connect to SQL Server databases easily.
You just need to install the on-premises data gateway. Then in Power BI Service, select Settings > Manage gateways, select your gateway and select Add data source. Then add the on-premises SQL Server DB as a data source. For detailed steps, you can read this article: Add or remove a gateway data source - Power BI | Microsoft Docs.
After you have added this data source on the gateway, go to Dataset Settings page and select your dataset. Expand Gateway connection section, turn on Use an On-premises or VNet data gateway option. Then select your gateway and map data sources in the dataset to corresponding data sources on that gateway. Apply the change.
Now you should be able to refresh data from the on-premises SQL Server database.
Please refer to below tutorials for SQL Server data sources.
Tutorial: Connect to on-premises data in SQL Server - Power BI | Microsoft Docs
Manage your data source - SQL - Power BI | Microsoft Docs
Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Jing
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