Microsoft Power BI is a unique solution that permits business owners to boost corporate data integration without devoting too much time and effort. All that’s needed to take full advantage of this solution’s reporting and analytics potential is to integrate tools that unify all data sources into a single place where they can be combined, analyzed, and visualized seamlessly. This is where Alpha Serve’s Power BI Connector for ServiceNow comes in.
IT, support, or any other teams that use ServiceNow to manage their daily operations will find this tool a convenient solution for building reports and monitoring KPIs in Power BI Based on ServiceNow data. This Power BI Integration with ServiceNow is also useful for business analysts, business owners, and C-level management who need to have a clear understanding of business performance. It is time to explore Power BI ServiceNow in detail to boost your business productivity.
Following numerous discussions in the Now Community, I’d like to share information on one more option to integrate ServiceNow with Power BI with a ready solution that we’ve developed recently.
Power BI Connector is an enterprise-grade app that helps users connect Power BI to ServiceNow. This way they can export data, build complex data models and take advantage of all the reporting and analytics features of Microsoft Power BI using data from ServiceNow. This article is a comprehensive guide to how this connector works and how to configure this integration..
What Features Does Power BI Connector Offer?
The Power BI ServiceNow Connector allows users to export data from ServiceNow into Power BI even without programming skills or IT support. Some of the features and benefits of this connector include:
Convenient user interface
The Power BI ServiceNow integration provides a familiar user interface for users through the ServiceNow portal. This simplifies the process of generating complex reports in Power BI after the data is exported.
Advanced filtering
The app’s interface makes it easy to filter data before they are transferred to Power BI. This way, only the most relevant information is exported from ServiceNow to Power BI.
Distributed user roles
The Power BI Connector allows you to set user roles within the application. This makes it possible to manage who has access to create, read, write, or delete data for security purposes. Users can be categorized into admin, editor, and viewer based on how much access they get.
Export large volumes of data
The Power BI Connector for ServiceNow has a solid application architecture which makes it possible to export big data volumes without any impact on the platform’s performance.
How to Export ServiceNow Data to Power BI: Quick Start
The Power BI Сonnector for ServiceNow was developed to allow users to seamlessly export ServiceNow data to Power BI as quickly as possible. The connector is a standalone application that does not have any special requirements to function on its own. It’s a Built on Now app, which means (as I’m sure you know) that it is natively built on the ServiceNow platform, thus it has the primary business logic, user experience, and end customer value designed on ServiceNow.
Where to find Power BI Connector
The Power BI Сonnector is now available on the ServiceNow store.
Follow the direct link or use the search bar on the ServiceNow store, just type “power bi” and click Search button. Once you have found it, click the “Try” and log in with your credential. You’ll be prompted to accept the terms of service and confirm that you want to try the app. Once this is done, the Power BI Connector for ServiceNow will be available for installation on the System Applications tab.
To buy the application after the trial period search for the connector on the ServiceNow store then click the “Buy” button to purchase it. The cost information of the app will be provided and you’ll be prompted to select a payment option. You’ll have access to a full app installation once your payment is verified.
Preinstallation requirements (system admin role) and others
Since the Power BI Connector is a standalone application, it does not need any special prerequisites to function. It is compatible with Rome, Paris, Quebec and San Diego instances, and works fine in all modern browsers as long as you’re using the latest version of the browser. Only users with the system admin role have permission to install this connector.
How to Provide Permission to Work with the Power BI Connector for ServiceNow: Assign User Roles
Even though only users with the Admin role can install the app, the Power BI Connector allows the admin to set other levels of permission for others based on their roles. This section is a guide on how to provide permission for other uses to work with the app after installation.
3 Types of User roles
Generally, there are 3 user roles and each one has a specific set of permissions assigned to them as highlighted below:
PBI Admin
The Admin has full permission to read, write, create and delete data sources. They can create and export tables in Power BI Connector for the ServiceNow plugin
PBI Editor
The Editor has access to the Power BI Connector for ServiceNow and this role allows them to read, write and create data sources. However, they cannot delete data sources like the Admin can.
PBI Viewer
The Viewer only has permission to read data sources in the Power BI Connector plugin and they can export Servicenow tables. However, they cannot write, create or delete data sources.
Assign Power BI User roles in just 5 steps
ServiceNow System Administrators can grant permission to work with the Power BI Connector for certain users by assigning relevant roles to them. The instructions below show how to assign the roles and provide users with appropriate permissions.
On the user’s table, find the users you want to assign a role to and click on the user ID.
Navigate to the “Roles” tab and click on “edit”
In the collection search field, enter the letter “x_acsof”. The Three roles available in Power BI Connector for ServiceNow roles will be shown
Select the role you’d like to assign by selecting the user from the collection and moving them to the roles list.
Click on Save, then click on the “Update User” button.
How to Use Power BI Connector for ServiceNow
Users with the Power BI Admin and Editor roles have permission to create a data source or import data into Power BI. Users can access the Power BI Connector from the Power BI Connector page or the Main page of the Service Portal depending on the roles assigned to them.
Create a Data Source in ServiceNow
Only Power BI Admin and Editors can create a data source in ServiceNow. To create a data source from the Service Portal, scroll down to find the Data Sources table then click on the “New” button.
Note! The Data Sources table is added to the Portal by your Admins. If you’re not able to find it, contact your ServiceNow Admin regarding this.
To create a data source from the Power BI Connector page, Click the “New” button and fill in the details on the page it opens. This includes the data source name, description and row limit. Click on “Add table” to configure Export config then click “Save”.
To add the tables, click the “Add Table” button. You can type the table name using the search field or manually scroll through the list to find it. Select the table and click the Add button. Subsequently, select the fields needed for the reports. You can also apply a filter to the table to narrow the export results.
Click the “save” button at the bottom of the page to save the data source.
Import ServiceNow Data into Microsoft Power BI
You can import data into Microsoft Power BI either from the Service Portal or from the Power BI Connector page.
To import data from the Service Portal, simply scroll down to find the “data sources” table and select the one you want to import from the list. You can also use the filter function to find it faster.
To import data from the Power BI Connector page, find the data source on the list or use a filter to find it. Next right-click on it to open a menu where you’ll copy the OData feed URL.
Go to the Power BI Desktop and click Get Data then paste the copied URL into the OData feed field.
In the opened window, enter your ServiceNow credentials and click Connect. The Navigator preview will open where you can select the table you want to import by checking the boxes. The import process begins as soon as this is done and you can begin building a ServiceNow Power BI dashboard using the imported data.
Conclusion
A ServiceNow Power BI integration using Power BI Connector will help bring all your ServiceNow data into a powerful analytics environment where you can gain valuable insights from them.
You do not need to spend time and resources for a complex integration solution, as it is a ready-to-use application. Neither you need to further debug and maintain it. You only need to start fetching data from ServiceNow to Power BI and enjoy reports and dashboards.
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