How to set custom null date (for Power BI) value instead of NULL dates from OBIEE?

Modified on Tue, 20 Jul 2021 at 04:15 AM

When you use Power BI in direct query mode and load the columns of DATE and TIMESTAMP datatype, PowerBI will keep on loading (spinning) instead of fetching the data if there are any null values in the column.


To overcome this, a default date value is set to replace the null date from the version 3.1.42.0109 of BI Connector. 


Customizing Null Date Value:


Also, you can customize the default date based on your need. To do so, kindly follow the below steps.


Step 1: Open “ODBC Administrator” and click on “Configure” button of the DSN created for connecting PowerBI with OBIEE. 


Step 2: Click on Advanced Settings icon to open the advanced settings dialog box.


Step 3: By default "Enable Null date value (for PowerBI)" is selected and the default value will be set to "1/1/1900" as shown in the below image.


Step 4: You can use the date picker and select the required date.




Step 5: Now click OK and close BI Connector dialog box. 


This will help you to customize the null date value and it will be used to replace the null dates from OBIEE.


Now try loading the column and the null date or the empty date will be replaced with the value specified through BI Connector settings.


NOTE: Don't disable this checkbox, when you have the null value in the date column, resulting in loading the column data endlessly.