The CData Sync App provides a straightforward way to continuously pipeline your Microsoft Power BI XMLA data to any database, data lake, or data warehouse, making it easily available for Analytics, Reporting, AI, and Machine Learning.
The Microsoft Power BI XMLA connector can be used from the CData Sync application to pull data from Microsoft Power BI XMLA and move it to any of the supported destinations.
Create a connection to Microsoft Power BI XMLA by navigating to the Connections page in the Sync App application and selecting the corresponding icon in the Add Connections panel. If the Microsoft Power BI XMLA icon is not available, click the Add More icon to download and install the Microsoft Power BI XMLA connector from the CData site.
Required properties are listed under the Settings tab. The Advanced tab lists connection properties that are not typically required.
To connect, set the Workspace property to a valid PowerBIXMLA workspace (ex: CData).
To connect to multiple workspaces at the same time, simply supply a comma-separated list of workspaces.
Microsoft Power BI XMLA is an OLAP database that exposes data as cubes, which you query with MDX (multidimensional expressions). The Sync App models these cubes in relational views that you can query with SQL-92. The following mapping is for the layout of the model:
In order to retrieve measures per specific level value, issue a join between the Measure view and any Dimension or
set of dimensions. For example, issuing the following will retrieve the number of customers in each city:
SELECT m.[Customer Count], c.[City] FROM [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Customer AS c INNER JOIN [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Measures AS m
Note that there is no ON condition necessary. That is because tables are already related appropriately in Microsoft Power BI XMLA. If you are using a tool that requires ON conditions, set IncludeJoinColumns to true. This will append a number of foreign key columns to each view which will relate them to one another another. These columns will not return data on their own, but may be picked up on automatically with tools to construct the ON conditions for joins where needed.
Data stored in Microsoft Power BI XMLA is already aggregated. In many cases, attempting to retrieve
an aggregate may be syntactically equivalent to not specifying anything. For example,
the following query will return the exact same data as the previous:
SELECT SUM(m.[Customer Count]), c.[City] FROM [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Customer AS c INNER JOIN [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Measures AS m GROUP BY c.[City]
The exception to this rule is when an aggregation of filtered results is requested.
In such cases, a calculation will be requested from Microsoft Power BI XMLA. For example, to
calculate the sum and average of customers in France and Germany:
SELECT SUM(m.[Customer Count]), AVG(m.[Customer Count]), c.[Country] FROM [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Customer AS c INNER JOIN [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Measures AS m WHERE c.[Country] IN ('France', 'Germany') GROUP BY c.[Country]
In Microsoft Power BI XMLA, individual dimensions are made up of hierarchies which may have one or more levels. For instance, the AdventureWorks Customers table has City, Country and Gender. City and Country are part of the same hierarchy while Gender is its own hierarchy.
When selecting multiple hierarchies, the method to support this is to cross join the values in MDX. While not obvious
from a relational table model of the data as the Sync App presents, this can cause for very expensive queries to
be executed. For example, executing the following:
SELECT c.[Country], m.[Customer Count] FROM [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Customer AS c INNER JOIN [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Measures AS m
Will result in 6 rows. However, selecting Gender as well:
SELECT c.[Country], c.[Gender], m.[Customer Count] FROM [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Customer AS c INNER JOIN [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Measures AS m
Will now result in 12 rows. It is because Gender and Country are on different hierarchies, thus a crossjoin
is required in order to return both together. Each additional hierarchy added to the SELECT will multiply the
total results by the number of available values in that hierarchy. Thus to get a count of how many rows to
expect, one can execute the following:
SELECT (COUNT(c.[Country])*COUNT(c.[Gender])) AS totalrows FROM [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Customer AS c
Due to how selecting multiple hierarchies will multiply the total number of result rows, it is possible to balloon the number of response rows very quickly, which will result in timeouts. In order to try and give some visibility into what queries will be very expensive, the ResponseRowLimit connection property has been added as a mechanism to guide users into an ideal configuration. When set, it will calculate how many rows to expect before any query is executed. If the number of predicted rows exceeds the limit, an error will be thrown indicating how many rows to expect back with the query.
It is recommended to select only the columns required or to apply a WHERE criteria. Both can significantly reduce the number of response rows, which will have a huge impact on performance. If you are already familiar with the Sync App and what queries may be expensive, ResponseRowLimit may be disabled by setting it to 0.
The following are properties that allow for more granular control over data access:
Setting this property to true will cause all queries to be passed through directly to Microsoft Power BI XMLA.
These do not come back with any values - they are added purely to enable tools that require them in order to automatically set up relationships between tables when creating joins.
Because queries are being translated to MDX, selecting only a few columns may exponentially multiply the number of expected results.
For this reason, ResponseRowLimit is available to try and give some guidance on what types of queries are likely to result in a Timeout. May be disabled by setting to 0.
This section details a selection of advanced features of the Microsoft Power BI XMLA Sync App.
The Sync App allows you to define virtual tables, called user defined views, whose contents are decided by a pre-configured query. These views are useful when you cannot directly control queries being issued to the drivers. See User Defined Views for an overview of creating and configuring custom views.
Use SSL Configuration to adjust how Sync App handles TLS/SSL certificate negotiations. You can choose from various certificate formats; see the SSLServerCert property under "Connection String Options" for more information.
Configure the Sync App for compliance with Firewall and Proxy, including Windows proxies and HTTP proxies. You can also set up tunnel connections.
The Sync App offloads as much of the SELECT statement processing as possible to Microsoft Power BI XMLA and then processes the rest of the query in memory (client-side).
See Query Processing for more information.
See Logging for an overview of configuration settings that can be used to refine CData logging. For basic logging, you only need to set two connection properties, but there are numerous features that support more refined logging, where you can select subsets of information to be logged using the LogModules connection property.
By default, the Sync App attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store.
To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats to do so.
To connect through the Windows system proxy, you do not need to set any additional connection properties. To connect to other proxies, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
In addition, to authenticate to an HTTP proxy, set ProxyAuthScheme, ProxyUser, and ProxyPassword, in addition to ProxyServer and ProxyPort.
Set the following properties:
This section shows the available API objects and provides more information on executing SQL to Microsoft Power BI XMLA APIs.
The Sync App models dimensions as tables, cubes as schemas, and a combination of the Workspace and DataSet Catalog as the Catalog. The Sync App supports connecting to multiple workspaces at the same time by supplying a comma-separated list of workspaces in the Workspace property. The result is that each workspace shows up in the catalogs as WorkspaceName_CatalogName.
By default, all measure attributes are listed in a 'Measures' view. However, you can set SplitMeasures to 'true' to split the measures view; the result is each measure attribute is included in its respective view based on the Measure Group value. Further classification based on 'Measure Directories' is not included.
Stored Procedures are function-like interfaces to Microsoft Power BI XMLA. Stored procedures allow you to execute operations to Microsoft Power BI XMLA, including downloading documents and moving envelopes.
The connection string properties are the various options that can be used to establish a connection. This section provides a complete list of the options you can configure in the connection string for this provider. Click the links for further details.
For more information on establishing a connection, see Establishing a Connection.
Property | Description |
AzureTenant | The Microsoft Online tenant being used to access data. If not specified, your default tentant will be used. |
AzureEnvironment | The Azure Environment to use when establishing a connection. |
Property | Description |
OAuthClientId | The client Id assigned when you register your application with an OAuth authorization server. |
OAuthClientSecret | The client secret assigned when you register your application with an OAuth authorization server. |
Property | Description |
SSLClientCert | The TLS/SSL client certificate store for SSL Client Authentication (2-way SSL). |
SSLClientCertType | The type of key store containing the TLS/SSL client certificate. |
SSLClientCertPassword | The password for the TLS/SSL client certificate. |
SSLClientCertSubject | The subject of the TLS/SSL client certificate. |
SSLServerCert | The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL. |
Property | Description |
FirewallType | The protocol used by a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallServer | The name or IP address of a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallPort | The TCP port for a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallUser | The user name to use to authenticate with a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallPassword | A password used to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall. |
Property | Description |
ProxyAutoDetect | This indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings. |
ProxyServer | The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. |
ProxyPort | The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on. |
ProxyAuthScheme | The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyUser | A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyPassword | A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxySSLType | The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyExceptions | A semicolon separated list of destination hostnames or IPs that are exempt from connecting through the ProxyServer . |
Property | Description |
LogModules | Core modules to be included in the log file. |
Property | Description |
Location | A path to the directory that contains the schema files defining tables, views, and stored procedures. |
BrowsableSchemas | This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC. |
Tables | This property restricts the tables reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Tables=TableA,TableB,TableC. |
Views | Restricts the views reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Views=ViewA,ViewB,ViewC. |
Catalog | The Power BI workspace and dataset to use. |
IncludeJoinColumns | Set this to true to include extra join columns on each table. |
Property | Description |
CustomHeaders | Other headers as determined by the user (optional). |
ExpressionInDescription | Set this to true to report expressions as part of the description on measure columns. |
ExtraProperties | Additional properties to submit on each MDX request to Microsoft Power BI XMLA. |
MaxRows | Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time. |
Other | These hidden properties are used only in specific use cases. |
ResponseRowLimit | The number of response rows to allow before triggering an error. Set to 0 for no limit. |
ShowHiddenEntities | Set this to true to include hidden dimensions, measures and levels. |
SplitMeasures | Set this to true to split Measures table into individual tables. |
Timeout | The value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation. |
UseMDX | Set this to true to pass MDX queries to Microsoft Power BI XMLA as-is. |
UserDefinedViews | A filepath pointing to the JSON configuration file containing your custom views. |
Workspace | The comma separated PowerBI workspace(s) to connect to. |
This section provides a complete list of the Azure Authentication properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
AzureTenant | The Microsoft Online tenant being used to access data. If not specified, your default tentant will be used. |
AzureEnvironment | The Azure Environment to use when establishing a connection. |
The Microsoft Online tenant being used to access data. If not specified, your default tentant will be used.
The Microsoft Online tenant being used to access data. For instance, contoso.onmicrosoft.com. Alternatively, specify the tenant Id. This value is the directory Id in the Azure Portal > Azure Active Directory > Properties.
Typically it is not necessary to specify the Tenant. This can be automatically determined by Microsoft when using the OAuthGrantType set to CODE (default). However, it may fail in the case that the user belongs to multiple tenants. For instance, if an Admin of domain A invites a user of domain B to be a guest user. The user will now belong to both tenants. It is a good practice to specify the Tenant, although in general things should normally work without having to specify it.
The AzureTenant is required when setting OAuthGrantType to CLIENT. When using client credentials, there is no user context. The credentials are taken from the context of the app itself. While Microsoft still allows client credentials to be obtained without specifying which Tenant, it has a much lower probability of picking the specific tenant you want to work with. For this reason, we require AzureTenant to be explicitly stated for all client credentials connections to ensure you get credentials that are applicable for the domain you intend to connect to.
The Azure Environment to use when establishing a connection.
In most cases, leaving the environment set to global will work. However, if your Azure Account has been added to a different environment, the AzureEnvironment may be used to specify which environment. The available values are GLOBAL, CHINA, USGOVT, USGOVTDOD.
This section provides a complete list of the OAuth properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
OAuthClientId | The client Id assigned when you register your application with an OAuth authorization server. |
OAuthClientSecret | The client secret assigned when you register your application with an OAuth authorization server. |
The client Id assigned when you register your application with an OAuth authorization server.
As part of registering an OAuth application, you will receive the OAuthClientId value, sometimes also called a consumer key, and a client secret, the OAuthClientSecret.
The client secret assigned when you register your application with an OAuth authorization server.
As part of registering an OAuth application, you will receive the OAuthClientId, also called a consumer key. You will also receive a client secret, also called a consumer secret. Set the client secret in the OAuthClientSecret property.
This section provides a complete list of the SSL properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
SSLClientCert | The TLS/SSL client certificate store for SSL Client Authentication (2-way SSL). |
SSLClientCertType | The type of key store containing the TLS/SSL client certificate. |
SSLClientCertPassword | The password for the TLS/SSL client certificate. |
SSLClientCertSubject | The subject of the TLS/SSL client certificate. |
SSLServerCert | The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL. |
The TLS/SSL client certificate store for SSL Client Authentication (2-way SSL).
The name of the certificate store for the client certificate.
The SSLClientCertType field specifies the type of the certificate store specified by SSLClientCert. If the store is password protected, specify the password in SSLClientCertPassword.
SSLClientCert is used in conjunction with the SSLClientCertSubject field in order to specify client certificates. If SSLClientCert has a value, and SSLClientCertSubject is set, a search for a certificate is initiated. See SSLClientCertSubject for more information.
Designations of certificate stores are platform-dependent.
The following are designations of the most common User and Machine certificate stores in Windows:
MY | A certificate store holding personal certificates with their associated private keys. |
CA | Certifying authority certificates. |
ROOT | Root certificates. |
SPC | Software publisher certificates. |
In Java, the certificate store normally is a file containing certificates and optional private keys.
When the certificate store type is PFXFile, this property must be set to the name of the file. When the type is PFXBlob, the property must be set to the binary contents of a PFX file (for example, PKCS12 certificate store).
The type of key store containing the TLS/SSL client certificate.
This property can take one of the following values:
USER - default | For Windows, this specifies that the certificate store is a certificate store owned by the current user. Note that this store type is not available in Java. |
MACHINE | For Windows, this specifies that the certificate store is a machine store. Note that this store type is not available in Java. |
PFXFILE | The certificate store is the name of a PFX (PKCS12) file containing certificates. |
PFXBLOB | The certificate store is a string (base-64-encoded) representing a certificate store in PFX (PKCS12) format. |
JKSFILE | The certificate store is the name of a Java key store (JKS) file containing certificates. Note that this store type is only available in Java. |
JKSBLOB | The certificate store is a string (base-64-encoded) representing a certificate store in JKS format. Note that this store type is only available in Java. |
PEMKEY_FILE | The certificate store is the name of a PEM-encoded file that contains a private key and an optional certificate. |
PEMKEY_BLOB | The certificate store is a string (base64-encoded) that contains a private key and an optional certificate. |
PUBLIC_KEY_FILE | The certificate store is the name of a file that contains a PEM- or DER-encoded public key certificate. |
PUBLIC_KEY_BLOB | The certificate store is a string (base-64-encoded) that contains a PEM- or DER-encoded public key certificate. |
SSHPUBLIC_KEY_FILE | The certificate store is the name of a file that contains an SSH-style public key. |
SSHPUBLIC_KEY_BLOB | The certificate store is a string (base-64-encoded) that contains an SSH-style public key. |
P7BFILE | The certificate store is the name of a PKCS7 file containing certificates. |
PPKFILE | The certificate store is the name of a file that contains a PuTTY Private Key (PPK). |
XMLFILE | The certificate store is the name of a file that contains a certificate in XML format. |
XMLBLOB | The certificate store is a string that contains a certificate in XML format. |
The password for the TLS/SSL client certificate.
If the certificate store is of a type that requires a password, this property is used to specify that password to open the certificate store.
The subject of the TLS/SSL client certificate.
When loading a certificate the subject is used to locate the certificate in the store.
If an exact match is not found, the store is searched for subjects containing the value of the property. If a match is still not found, the property is set to an empty string, and no certificate is selected.
The special value "*" picks the first certificate in the certificate store.
The certificate subject is a comma separated list of distinguished name fields and values. For example, "CN=www.server.com, OU=test, C=US, [email protected]". The common fields and their meanings are shown below.
Field | Meaning |
CN | Common Name. This is commonly a host name like www.server.com. |
O | Organization |
OU | Organizational Unit |
L | Locality |
S | State |
C | Country |
E | Email Address |
If a field value contains a comma, it must be quoted.
The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL.
If using a TLS/SSL connection, this property can be used to specify the TLS/SSL certificate to be accepted from the server. Any other certificate that is not trusted by the machine is rejected.
This property can take the following forms:
Description | Example |
A full PEM Certificate (example shortened for brevity) | -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIIChTCCAe4CAQAwDQYJKoZIhv......Qw== -----END CERTIFICATE----- |
A path to a local file containing the certificate | C:\cert.cer |
The public key (example shortened for brevity) | -----BEGIN RSA PUBLIC KEY----- MIGfMA0GCSq......AQAB -----END RSA PUBLIC KEY----- |
The MD5 Thumbprint (hex values can also be either space or colon separated) | ecadbdda5a1529c58a1e9e09828d70e4 |
The SHA1 Thumbprint (hex values can also be either space or colon separated) | 34a929226ae0819f2ec14b4a3d904f801cbb150d |
If not specified, any certificate trusted by the machine is accepted.
Use '*' to signify to accept all certificates. Note that this is not recommended due to security concerns.
This section provides a complete list of the Firewall properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
FirewallType | The protocol used by a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallServer | The name or IP address of a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallPort | The TCP port for a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallUser | The user name to use to authenticate with a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallPassword | A password used to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall. |
The protocol used by a proxy-based firewall.
This property specifies the protocol that the Sync App will use to tunnel traffic through the FirewallServer proxy. Note that by default, the Sync App connects to the system proxy; to disable this behavior and connect to one of the following proxy types, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
Type | Default Port | Description |
TUNNEL | 80 | When this is set, the Sync App opens a connection to Microsoft Power BI XMLA and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy. |
SOCKS4 | 1080 | When this is set, the Sync App sends data through the SOCKS 4 proxy specified by FirewallServer and FirewallPort and passes the FirewallUser value to the proxy, which determines if the connection request should be granted. |
SOCKS5 | 1080 | When this is set, the Sync App sends data through the SOCKS 5 proxy specified by FirewallServer and FirewallPort. If your proxy requires authentication, set FirewallUser and FirewallPassword to credentials the proxy recognizes. |
To connect to HTTP proxies, use ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate to HTTP proxies, use ProxyAuthScheme, ProxyUser, and ProxyPassword.
The name or IP address of a proxy-based firewall.
This property specifies the IP address, DNS name, or host name of a proxy allowing traversal of a firewall. The protocol is specified by FirewallType: Use FirewallServer with this property to connect through SOCKS or do tunneling. Use ProxyServer to connect to an HTTP proxy.
Note that the Sync App uses the system proxy by default. To use a different proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
The TCP port for a proxy-based firewall.
This specifies the TCP port for a proxy allowing traversal of a firewall. Use FirewallServer to specify the name or IP address. Specify the protocol with FirewallType.
The user name to use to authenticate with a proxy-based firewall.
The FirewallUser and FirewallPassword properties are used to authenticate against the proxy specified in FirewallServer and FirewallPort, following the authentication method specified in FirewallType.
A password used to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall.
This property is passed to the proxy specified by FirewallServer and FirewallPort, following the authentication method specified by FirewallType.
This section provides a complete list of the Proxy properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
ProxyAutoDetect | This indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings. |
ProxyServer | The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. |
ProxyPort | The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on. |
ProxyAuthScheme | The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyUser | A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyPassword | A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxySSLType | The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyExceptions | A semicolon separated list of destination hostnames or IPs that are exempt from connecting through the ProxyServer . |
This indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings.
This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings.
To connect to an HTTP proxy, see ProxyServer. For other proxies, such as SOCKS or tunneling, see FirewallType.
The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through.
The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. The Sync App can use the HTTP, Windows (NTLM), or Kerberos authentication types to authenticate to an HTTP proxy.
If you need to connect through a SOCKS proxy or tunnel the connection, see FirewallType.
By default, the Sync App uses the system proxy. If you need to use another proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on.
The port the HTTP proxy is running on that you want to redirect HTTP traffic through. Specify the HTTP proxy in ProxyServer. For other proxy types, see FirewallType.
The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
This value specifies the authentication type to use to authenticate to the HTTP proxy specified by ProxyServer and ProxyPort.
Note that the Sync App will use the system proxy settings by default, without further configuration needed; if you want to connect to another proxy, you will need to set ProxyAutoDetect to false, in addition to ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate, set ProxyAuthScheme and set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword, if needed.
The authentication type can be one of the following:
If you need to use another authentication type, such as SOCKS 5 authentication, see FirewallType.
A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
The ProxyUser and ProxyPassword options are used to connect and authenticate against the HTTP proxy specified in ProxyServer.
You can select one of the available authentication types in ProxyAuthScheme. If you are using HTTP authentication, set this to the user name of a user recognized by the HTTP proxy. If you are using Windows or Kerberos authentication, set this property to a user name in one of the following formats:
user@domain domain\user
A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
This property is used to authenticate to an HTTP proxy server that supports NTLM (Windows), Kerberos, or HTTP authentication. To specify the HTTP proxy, you can set ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To specify the authentication type, set ProxyAuthScheme.
If you are using HTTP authentication, additionally set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword to HTTP proxy.
If you are using NTLM authentication, set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword to your Windows password. You may also need these to complete Kerberos authentication.
For SOCKS 5 authentication or tunneling, see FirewallType.
By default, the Sync App uses the system proxy. If you want to connect to another proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy.
This property determines when to use SSL for the connection to an HTTP proxy specified by ProxyServer. This value can be AUTO, ALWAYS, NEVER, or TUNNEL. The applicable values are the following:
AUTO | Default setting. If the URL is an HTTPS URL, the Sync App will use the TUNNEL option. If the URL is an HTTP URL, the component will use the NEVER option. |
ALWAYS | The connection is always SSL enabled. |
NEVER | The connection is not SSL enabled. |
TUNNEL | The connection is through a tunneling proxy. The proxy server opens a connection to the remote host and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy. |
A semicolon separated list of destination hostnames or IPs that are exempt from connecting through the ProxyServer .
The ProxyServer is used for all addresses, except for addresses defined in this property. Use semicolons to separate entries.
Note that the Sync App uses the system proxy settings by default, without further configuration needed; if you want to explicitly configure proxy exceptions for this connection, you need to set ProxyAutoDetect = false, and configure ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate, set ProxyAuthScheme and set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword, if needed.
This section provides a complete list of the Logging properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
LogModules | Core modules to be included in the log file. |
Core modules to be included in the log file.
Only the modules specified (separated by ';') will be included in the log file. By default all modules are included.
See the Logging page for an overview.
This section provides a complete list of the Schema properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
Location | A path to the directory that contains the schema files defining tables, views, and stored procedures. |
BrowsableSchemas | This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC. |
Tables | This property restricts the tables reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Tables=TableA,TableB,TableC. |
Views | Restricts the views reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Views=ViewA,ViewB,ViewC. |
Catalog | The Power BI workspace and dataset to use. |
IncludeJoinColumns | Set this to true to include extra join columns on each table. |
A path to the directory that contains the schema files defining tables, views, and stored procedures.
The path to a directory which contains the schema files for the Sync App (.rsd files for tables and views, .rsb files for stored procedures). The folder location can be a relative path from the location of the executable. The Location property is only needed if you want to customize definitions (for example, change a column name, ignore a column, and so on) or extend the data model with new tables, views, or stored procedures.
If left unspecified, the default location is "%APPDATA%\\CData\\PowerBIXMLA Data Provider\\Schema" with %APPDATA% being set to the user's configuration directory:
This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC.
Listing the schemas from databases can be expensive. Providing a list of schemas in the connection string improves the performance.
This property restricts the tables reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Tables=TableA,TableB,TableC.
Listing the tables from some databases can be expensive. Providing a list of tables in the connection string improves the performance of the Sync App.
This property can also be used as an alternative to automatically listing views if you already know which ones you want to work with and there would otherwise be too many to work with.
Specify the tables you want in a comma-separated list. Each table should be a valid SQL identifier with any special characters escaped using square brackets, double-quotes or backticks. For example, Tables=TableA,[TableB/WithSlash],WithCatalog.WithSchema.`TableC With Space`.
Note that when connecting to a data source with multiple schemas or catalogs, you will need to provide the fully qualified name of the table in this property, as in the last example here, to avoid ambiguity between tables that exist in multiple catalogs or schemas.
Restricts the views reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Views=ViewA,ViewB,ViewC.
Listing the views from some databases can be expensive. Providing a list of views in the connection string improves the performance of the Sync App.
This property can also be used as an alternative to automatically listing views if you already know which ones you want to work with and there would otherwise be too many to work with.
Specify the views you want in a comma-separated list. Each view should be a valid SQL identifier with any special characters escaped using square brackets, double-quotes or backticks. For example, Views=ViewA,[ViewB/WithSlash],WithCatalog.WithSchema.`ViewC With Space`.
Note that when connecting to a data source with multiple schemas or catalogs, you will need to provide the fully qualified name of the table in this property, as in the last example here, to avoid ambiguity between tables that exist in multiple catalogs or schemas.
The Power BI workspace and dataset to use.
The Sync App combines each Power BI workspace and dataset into a single catalog name. For example, if you have a workspace called MyWorkspace and a dataset called MyDataset then its catalog name will be MyWorkspace_MyDataset.
By default the Sync App will report all workspaces and datasets as separate catalogs.
A query can either use the catalog directly, or leave off the catalog to have the Sync App search for a matching table.
-- Use this specific catalog SELECT ... FROM MyWorkspace_MyDataset.Model.MyDimension -- Search for a catalog containing this table SELECT ... FROM Model.MyDimension
However, if you have enabled UseMDX then you may want to set this value so that MDX queries go to the correct workspace and dataset. The Sync App cannot determine the workspace and dataset automatically from an MDX query.
Set this to true to include extra join columns on each table.
Some tools may require an ON condition (or generate them automatically) based on foreign key references. By setting IncludeJoinColumns to true, every table will include a foreign key reference to the other tables. These columns will not return any data and are not useful for anything other than passing as ON conditions to perform joins upon.
In Microsoft Power BI XMLA, the dimensions and measures making up the tables are already related naturally. There is no context on which to join them provided. Therefore, the CData Sync App supports joining without specifying an ON condition, so they are optional to specify.
This section provides a complete list of the Miscellaneous properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
CustomHeaders | Other headers as determined by the user (optional). |
ExpressionInDescription | Set this to true to report expressions as part of the description on measure columns. |
ExtraProperties | Additional properties to submit on each MDX request to Microsoft Power BI XMLA. |
MaxRows | Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time. |
Other | These hidden properties are used only in specific use cases. |
ResponseRowLimit | The number of response rows to allow before triggering an error. Set to 0 for no limit. |
ShowHiddenEntities | Set this to true to include hidden dimensions, measures and levels. |
SplitMeasures | Set this to true to split Measures table into individual tables. |
Timeout | The value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation. |
UseMDX | Set this to true to pass MDX queries to Microsoft Power BI XMLA as-is. |
UserDefinedViews | A filepath pointing to the JSON configuration file containing your custom views. |
Workspace | The comma separated PowerBI workspace(s) to connect to. |
Other headers as determined by the user (optional).
This property can be set to a string of headers to be appended to the HTTP request headers created from other properties, like ContentType, From, and so on.
The headers must be of the format "header: value" as described in the HTTP specifications. Header lines should be separated by the carriage return and line feed (CRLF) characters.
Use this property with caution. If this property contains invalid headers, HTTP requests may fail.
This property is useful for fine-tuning the functionality of the Sync App to integrate with specialized or nonstandard APIs.
Set this to true to report expressions as part of the description on measure columns.
The Sync App reports the remarks for several types of entities (dimensions, measures, measure groups and heirarchies) as table and column descriptions. By default, the Sync App will include only the remarks in measure column descriptions.
If this option is enabled, then the measure expression is included in the measure column description, along with the remarks. The descriptions on other types of entities are not affected.
Additional properties to submit on each MDX request to Microsoft Power BI XMLA.
When setting UseMDX to true, properties may be specified using this connection property to fill out extra values in the PropertiesList of the XMLA request. Use name=value pairs separated by a semicolon to submit the properties. For example, Catalog=MyCatalog;Cube=MyCube;.
A list of properties may be found by executing SELECT * FROM $System.DISCOVER_PROPERTIES.
Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time.
Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time.
These hidden properties are used only in specific use cases.
The properties listed below are available for specific use cases. Normal driver use cases and functionality should not require these properties.
Specify multiple properties in a semicolon-separated list.
DefaultColumnSize | Sets the default length of string fields when the data source does not provide column length in the metadata. The default value is 2000. |
ConvertDateTimeToGMT | Determines whether to convert date-time values to GMT, instead of the local time of the machine. |
RecordToFile=filename | Records the underlying socket data transfer to the specified file. |
The number of response rows to allow before triggering an error. Set to 0 for no limit.
Selecting a lot of columns results in a number of crossjoins occurring under the hood when translated to something that is acceptable for Microsoft Power BI XMLA. This is not intuitive if you are not familiar with MDX. It can easily result in very large responses that time out. The ResponseRowLimit is designed to alert the user to very expensive requests.
Set this to true to include hidden dimensions, measures and levels.
By default the Sync App does not report entities that Microsoft Power BI XMLA marks as hidden. Enabling this option allows you to query them.
Set this to true to split Measures table into individual tables.
All measures are currently grouped into a single table 'Measures'. Set this to true to split Measures table into individual tables (if a table only contains measures) and include measures into respective dimensions tables.
The value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation.
If Timeout = 0, operations do not time out. The operations run until they complete successfully or until they encounter an error condition.
If Timeout expires and the operation is not yet complete, the Sync App throws an exception.
Set this to true to pass MDX queries to Microsoft Power BI XMLA as-is.
You can execute SQL-92 SELECT queries to the views modeled by the Sync App; set this property to instead execute MDX queries directly to Microsoft Power BI XMLA.
A filepath pointing to the JSON configuration file containing your custom views.
User Defined Views are defined in a JSON-formatted configuration file called UserDefinedViews.json. The Sync App automatically detects the views specified in this file.
You can also have multiple view definitions and control them using the UserDefinedViews connection property. When you use this property, only the specified views are seen by the Sync App.
This User Defined View configuration file is formatted as follows:
For example:
{ "MyView": { "query": "SELECT * FROM [AdventureWorksDW2012Multidimensional-SE].[Adventure Works].Customer WHERE MyColumn = 'value'" }, "MyView2": { "query": "SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE Id IN (1,2,3)" } }Use the UserDefinedViews connection property to specify the location of your JSON configuration file. For example:
"UserDefinedViews", "C:\\Users\\yourusername\\Desktop\\tmp\\UserDefinedViews.json"
The comma separated PowerBI workspace(s) to connect to.
The comma separated PowerBI workspace(s) to connect to. If not specified, objects from all workspaces will be available. This will cause extra requests to be executed to list objects from all workspaces.
Note: The workspace names are case-sensitive.