Consolidate OData data source authentication within Data Gateway

[aJayMitchell]

Hi all,

I've recently set up a number of dataflows for a client which use Odata feeds from Dynamics NAV. The model pulls data for around 15 companies in their Dynamics setup, and a feed for both Budget Ledger Entries and General Ledger Entries. As the Dynamics setup is on-premises, we're using a data gateway to provide access to the data.

My issue is that every Odata feed has needed to be authenticated individually - so when I go into 'Manage Gateways' through the Power BI web service, there's a list of 30+ data sources - which just seems messy and unneccesary.

Two examples of Odata feed locations are:

http://servername:8048/NAV2017/OData/Company('companyname1')/BI_GeneralLedgerEntries

http://servername:8048/NAV2017/OData/Company('companyname2')/BI_GeneralLedgerEntries

Is there a way that I can add in the base path of these locations (eg. http://servername:8048/NAV2017/OData/) which will mean that any and all OData feeds from there will use that one set of stored credentials? I tried setting up an 'OData' data source type just with the base path, but that doesn't seem to work.

Any help greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Ally

[aJayMitchell]

One thing I've just considered is that going down this route means that you can't apply any select or filter arguments to the specific OData feeds, which in my case I do actually need for some. So my approach above will work for some, but not others. Any other thoughts appreciated!

[aJayMitchell · Accepted solution]

As tends to the be the case whenever I post a query up here, I've managed to solve it myself a matter of minutes later!

Unfortunately this solution requires me to go through and amend all the dataflows, but it'll be worth it in the long-run. 

When you set up an OData feed to Dynamics, you're best using the base URI first. So where I had previously entered http://servername:8048/NAV2017/OData/Company('companyname1')/BI_GeneralLedgerEntries, I simply enter http://servername:8048/NAV2017/OData/.

You can then use a couple navigation steps to filter down to 'Company' and then the specific OData feed. Setting it up this way means the credentials are stored purely at the base URI level, and so only one 'Data Source' will show under 'Manage Gateways' (in my case it uses the one I tried to set up previously).

Navigation Step 1 - Select CompanyNagivation Step 2 - Select the data feed (the rows show the various different companies)

[Anonymous]

Hi @aJayMitchell ,

Thanks for sharing.

Please consider accepting your own answer as a solution, it will help others to find it more quickly, thanks in advance.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team_Gao