Connect Power BI Desktop to OBIEE Subject Areas using Import - Step-by-Step User Guide

Modified on Thu, 26 Nov, 2020 at 5:53 AM

The following is a general tutorial for connecting from Power BI to OBIEE using BI Connector Import with BI Connector Desktop Edition.


Pre-requisites

  1. Microsoft Power BI Desktop December 2018 update or the latest version.
  2. BI Connector Desktop Edition for Microsoft PowerBI. (Step-by-Step Installation Guide for BI Connector Desktop Edition for Microsoft PowerBI)

Connecting from Power BI to OBIEE Subject Areas


Launch PowerBI Desktop

Launch Power BI Desktop and Select 'Get Data' option.



Select BI Connector 

In the Get Data Dialog, Scroll down and select 'BI Connector' and click connect.



Enter DSN Information

  • In the BI Connector dialog box ,Select Import radio button.
  • Enter the DSN name that you configured after installing BI Connector.
  • Click Ok button.



Select a Subject Area

On successful connection,Click on the Database name and connect to the required database.


list of Subject Areas will be displayed. Select a Subject Area from the list.



Load Tables

Select one or more tables from the list and click on Edit button.



Merge Tables.

Click on 'Merge Queries'. Select table from the drop down list that needs to be merged.



Select the column GZID on both tables and select the 'Join Kind' to  Left Outer and click Ok button. 

Note: GZID is a BI connector virtual column that is used to ensure that PowerBI uses OBIEE joins.  

          Please make sure to select the fact table on the top and the dimension table on the bottom while merging the tables.



Select columns from merged table

Select the required columns from the merged table for visualization. 



Apply Changes.

Click 'Close and Apply' option to apply changes. 



Create Visualization

Drag and drop the columns from the fact and dimension tables.   Now you have created your first Power BI Visualization for OBIEE data.  Congratulations!



If you have any questions or issues creating a report, we are just a click away. Contact us at support@biconnector.com or file a ticket at our support portal.