ODBC connection walkthrough help

[GilesWalker]

Hi everyone,

I have searched the internet and the forums and cannot seem to find a clear walkthrough of how to connect to and ODBC. The system I am trying to connect to is a Clarion system using .TPS files, Softvelocity now own the system and the drivers. The driver costs $300 so I am a little hestitant to buy it if it is not going to work.

Hoping someone has some good links and how ODBC works and how you convert the files to be an SQL like table, how you connect an ODBC driver to Power BI. If anyone has dealt with .TPS files it would be great to hear from you. 

Hope someone can shed some light on this.

Thanks,

giles

[ankitpatira]

@GilesWalker we have odbc before to connect to firebird database using firebird odbc driver. process was quite simple as we first created system DSN and tested out ODBC driver and then connected to that DSN using power bi ODBC connector. since you're dealing with files i would suggest you create DSN and test out your ODBC driver first before using it with power bi. Power BI also gives you option to enter in connection string and connect that way if you don't want to create DSN. Both ways have worked fine for me using firebird odbc driver.

[vmsouza30]

Hi,

Do you have the documentation about conecction between Power Bi and ODBC Firebird?

Tks

[GilesWalker]

@ankitpatira I am currently having issues trying to connect to an ODBC driver. The furthest I can get is the list of tables in the driver in Power BI but if i select a table I get an error message saying;

Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.

I can connect to the data in Excel 2016 without an issue.

Thanks,

Giles

[ankitpatira]

@GilesWalker are you connecting by creating DSN adn using that DSN in power bi or straight using connection string for ODBC ? I would suggest to create DSN and use that in power bi.