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Power BI connexion

Hello community,

My client wants to connect power BI with Flexera, I want to know is there a connector from the beacon? or do you have to connect it directly to the sql server?

thank you.

Regards,

OT

(13) Replies

Assuming that your client has FNMS On-Premises and they want to create reports from FlexNet Manager data using Power BI, then you would need to connect Power BI directly to the FNMS SQL Server database.

A couple options to consider:

Option A - creating a "Reporting" database that Power BI connects to.  This would be a standard SQL Server backup and restore of your FNMS Compliance Database.  With this method, having active Power BI connections to the reporting database will not interfere with the normal operations of FlexNet Manager and cause database contention.

Option B - Determine what data is required from FlexNet Manager.  Set up a separate SQL Server database where you have a simplified database schema where your data has been "Flattened Out".  You would then need to create SQL Scripts/Jobs to extract data out of the FNMS database and insert into your new SQL Database.  You can then connect Power BI to this database, with a simpler database schema.

Option C -  Directly access the FNMS databases (read only). Maybe limit what can be accessed, by providing dedicated views. In some very complex cases, we pre-compile reporting data into dedicated tables, so they are not calculated during the report.

Hi, I am interested in option A. But Can I just create VIEWS of each DB, Tables and create a connection for PowerBI? 

You might be better off using SQL server management tool to determine what you need and write your queries to ensure you have the data limited to only the fields you want and use an advance connection that uses the query directly in the Power BI data provider.  That will keep the data structures standard FNMS on Prem and will not have any upgrade issues with the database due to views and tables not owned by the appropriate account. It will also limit your Power BI server or service from having to pull as much data into the system. 

 

Hi KClausen,

 

Do you have any video for the Option A & B, so that I can understand well on connection between Power BI & IT Visibility.

 

Thanks,

Gokulnath

Gokulnath PL

@gposanaan - The prior discussions here were for FlexNet Manager On-Premises, where you would have full access to the backend SQL database.

IT Visibility is a SaaS application and you would have no direct connection to the backend database.  You would need to use the CSV Extract or pull data from the API in order to create reports in Power BI using the data from IT Visibility.

@kclausen - Is there any other way to show case my Power BI with Live data of IT Visibility, other than download as .csv file. 

Gokulnath PL

Since IT Visibility is a SaaS Application, you would not be able to connect Power BI to live data.  That would be true of any SaaS application.  You would be able to run Power BI off of data extracts only (CSV, API pulls, etc.)

Note that there will soon be new Ad-Hoc Dashboard reporting directly within the IT Visibility user interface that our Beta Testers are very excited with.

@kclausen  will the ITV Dashboard/s be coming to ITAM in the near future? As I have the requirement to build Dashboards in ITAM. 

@bmaudlin - I am not aware of any "near term" changes for ITAM Reporting.  For creating dashboards in ITAM, your options are:

1 - Use Flexera Analytics

2 - Use the REST APIs to extract data out of ITAM and then use a tool such as Power BI or Tableau to create your dashboards.  I know that the set of available APIs will be expanded throughout 2022.

@kclausen thanks for the update.

With 1, are these fully customisable to our needs as that is the bit I am currently struggling with. 

2. API's are not available for the EU cloud as far as I am aware, and I have made my thoughts known about that ðŸ˜€

@bmaudlin 

For Flexera Analytics, you are restricted to what has been created in the Analytics Data Model as you cannot create reports directly against the database.  This also requires some knowledge and experience in using IBM Cognos.

In terms of the Flexera One EMEA cloud, there are a few features that are not available, but the ITAM REST API is not one of those, you should have that fully available.

@kclausen 

Thanks for the update, so from my understanding in Flexera Analytics we have little flexibility?

Understood, apologies I forgot about the REST API, mainly as it's limited to circa 7 categories, and I was thinking about this API > https://community.flexera.com/t5/Flexera-One-Blog/The-New-Public-Facing-Flexera-One-Technopedia-API-Limited/bc-p/222817#M178