Using the 'Web' data source type for Salesforce

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I have quite a unique scenario in that I am wanting to use the Web data source type opposed to the actual Salesforce connectors for grabbing data from Salesforce. The reason behind this is that we have several reports built in Salesforce and when Power BI grabs these, they are outputted without any groupings or summaries which we want to keep, however if you grab the report directly using https://XXXXXXX.my.salesforce.com/ObjectIDHere?excel=1?exp=1 then the groupings and custom functions are kept.

I have tried feeding this URL directly into Power BI to grab the report, however it seems I am hitting an authentication problem as the detected data type is HTML and not XLSX as I would expect.

As this is configured as a 'Web' data source, how would I feed my credentials or an API key in?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Callum

[jasonmiller11tt]

The Web connector can't reuse your Salesforce login session, so it usually returns the HTML login page instead of the Excel file. If you need the report with groupings intact, consider using the Salesforce Reports API with OAuth or a scheduled report export instead of the direct ?excel=1 URL.

[metrica]

Hi Callum,

The accepted OAuth approach is valid, but it requires building and maintaining a custom Salesforce API authentication flow.

If your goal is to bring data from existing Salesforce reports into Power BI, you could consider Power BI Connector for Salesforce. It supports tabular, summary, matrix, and joined reports, and is not subject to the native Salesforce Reports connector's 2,000-row limit.

The app is available on Salesforce AppExchange with a 30-day free trial: https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxListingDetail?listingId=31526f0e-abd8-4cb5-bd1a-3bd56b5c0577

Documentation:
https://metricasoftware.com/docs/salesforce/

Support:
https://metricasoftware.com/docs/salesforce/contact-support/

We would also be happy to arrange a demo and review your reporting scenario.

Cheers,
Metrica Team

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous,

Based on my research, Salesforce report api uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication, you can set up authentication following the guide in this article. 


Then provide the access token in Authentication header of Power Query, there is a similar blog for your reference.

Authorization: Bearer access_token

In addition, for more details about how to detemine the URL to connect to the salesforce report with API, please contact salesforce support.



Regards,
Lydia