Using Power BI with Quickbase

There are two new tools that I’m working with at work: Microsoft’s Power BI and Quickbase. One of the thing we’re thinking of is loading more data from our vendor into Quickbase so we can combine that data with other data, maybe marketing, and then push those data into a visualization tool – in this case Power BI – and then finally distribute the story/visual communication to our clients or internally. I think the plan is to use Sharepoint as our distribution point.

So playing around with the Dropbox API is coming in handy because it is giving me a framework on how APIs work. Right now, I’ve successfully pushed data into Quickbase via API and pulled in data from Quickbase to Power BI, also via API.

For the past few weeks I’ve been focusing on the data visualization in Power BI which is probably not as easy as one would think. This weekend I worked on a personal project for work, which is why no postings have been done this weekend, and it took me a while and I still haven’t got it to where I want it. And I already have been trying to use Power BI last year so it is not a totally new tool. The hindrance in pursuing it fully was there was no good distribution method since I was using the free Power BI desktop which either pushes the reports/visuals to the paid Power BI or download as .pbix. I knew there was no way anybody was going to download the free desktop version just to see a bunch of graphs. The managers I’m working with are not technologically oriented.

Now we have the paid version which is Power BI service but it downloads as PDF or Powerpoint or can be embedded into a web site or is pushed to Sharepoint. We’re getting Sharepoint but it’s not ready yet so I can’t play around with Sharepoint to see how Power BI and Sharepoint work together.

So the process I’m currently thinking is, initially, download data from our vendor and use the usual Excel macro to automate the push the data into Quickbase and then from there make Power BI desktop pull in the data from Quickbase, do its stuff and then push to Power BI service which is then eventually pushed into Sharepoint. Eventually we want to have an automatic data feed from our vendor to Quickbase but it depends on whether they give us the API.

And then so far, it looks like only Power BI desktop (the free version) can pull in data from Quickbase and it’s in beta mode. Power BI service (the paid version) does not look like it can connect to Quickbase but this is the one with greater distribution capabilities so the distribution to Sharepoint can only be done from the service. And it also looks like the service has some automation features that the desktop does not?

I would like to knock out the Power BI desktop to shorten the trip and to add in greater chance of automation.

So I have a lot more work to do.