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power_bi_connector:getting_started

Getting started

This is a quick guide on how to connect and get easy access to your data within Power BI dashboards, reports and datasets.

What is the Industrial Connector for Power BI?

The Industrial Connector solves a common industry problem - getting operational data into Power BI.

Historian data does not come in the tabular format that Power BI desires. Our connector completes this essential task in a way that requires no complicated queries, no secondary data storage location, and no SQL - We connect straight from your historian with our data connectivity software, App Store Connect.

Users commonly use our Industrial Connector to import process data. However, you can also import Alarm & Event data, along with.calculated alarm KPIs


Getting the Industrial Connector

Intelligent Plant's Industrial Connector for Power BI is Microsoft Certified and distributed with Power BI Desktop as of the (May 2019) update.

 Solution Overview/Approach


How to Access the Industrial Connector and Connect to your data

Intelligent Plant's Industrial Connector is accessible via Power BI Desktop.

If your organisation already has a license for the Industrial Connector, follow the steps below on how to access it, or watch our video walkthrough

Before going through the steps, please make sure you have Power BI Desktop installed. You can download it via Microsoft's official website

  1. Open up Power BI Desktop.
  2. On the Home tab, select “Get Data”.
  3. Enter in “Industrial App Store” and click “Connect”.
  4. Click “Sign In”. The App Authorization page will pop up (if you have used and authorized the connector before, you may not see this window. Skip to step 7.)
  5. Select which data sources you wish to use on Power BI Desktop by clicking on them. When selected, they will turn green. Note - If you do not see the data source you need, please contact your Administrator.
  6. Scroll to the bottom of the App Authorization page and click “I agree - sign me into Power BI Connector”.
  7. Click “Connect” and the Navigator window will open within Power BI.
  8. You can begin entering in your query. Details on how to create a query can be found further down on this page. Alternatively, our video walkthrough provides explanation.

 Connect to your data  Connect to your data


Video Walkthrough

For more information, you can check our Industrial Connector YouTube walkthrough.

Feel free to get in touch with us if you need assistance setting up the connector or if you have any questions.


Licensing

Customers need to purchase a subscription in order to retrieve data using the Industrial Connector. Pleasecontact Intelligent Plant or ping us an email at info@intelligentplant.com if you have questions.

  • An unlicensed data response in Industrial Connector will look like this:

 Unlicensed request - full

  • Licenses can cover a subset of available data. For example, we can license only tags that begin with FL*. In this scenario, a request multiple tags that are and aren't covered under this rule will look like so:

 Unlicensed request - partial

  • And of course, a full license will just display the data as is:

 Licensed request - full


How do I fill out the "Get" queries?

Get Processed

Name Required Type Description Default Example
Tag Name(s) true string Comma separated tag names to get data for. n/a Sinusoid,LIC040
Start Date true string Absolute or relative start time to use when performing the data query. n/a *-10d, 2018-01-15
End Date true string Absolute or relative end time to use when performing the data query. n/a *, *-1h, 2020-09-01T00:00:00
Function true option Data function/aggregation to use when performing data query. n/a Interp, Plot, Min, Max, Avg, Raw
Interval false string The sample interval. n/a 20s, 3h, 1d
Display false option Indicate whether to display numerical, string or both tag values. Some tags (digital) might indicate a status which has a more meaningful text value, e.g.OFF, representation than a numerical value, e.g. 0. Numeric

Get Plot

Name Required Type Description Default Example
Tag Name(s) true string Comma separated tag names to get data for. n/a Sinusoid,LIC040
Start Date true string Absolute or relative start time to use when performing the data query. n/a *-10d, 2018-01-15
End Date true string Absolute or relative end time to use when performing the data query. n/a *, *-1h, 2020-09-01T00:00:00
Interval false string The maximum number of points to return per tag. n/a 20s, 3h, 1d
Display false option Indicate whether to display numerical, string or both tag values. Some tags (digital) might indicate a status which has a more meaningful text value, e.g.OFF, representation than a numerical value, e.g. 0. Numeric

Get Raw

Name Required Type Description Default Example
Tag Name(s) true string Comma separated tag names to get data for. n/a Sinusoid,LIC040
Start Date true string Absolute or relative start time to use when performing the data query. n/a *-10d, 2018-01-15
End Date true string Absolute or relative end time to use when performing the data query. n/a *, *-1h, 2020-09-01T00:00:00
Interval false string The maximum number of points to return per tag. n/a 20s, 3h, 1d
Display false option Indicate whether to display numerical, string or both tag values. Some tags (digital) might indicate a status which has a more meaningful text value, e.g.OFF, representation than a numerical value, e.g. 0. Numeric

Tag Search

Tag Name Required Type Description Default Example
Tag Name(s) true string The name filter to use. * LIC*
Page size false number Page size for the results. 20 5
Page number false number The page number of the matching results that should be returned. 0 2

Get Snapshot

Name Required Type Description Default Example
Tag Name(s) true string Comma separated tag names to get data for. n/a Sinusoid,LIC040
Display false option Indicate whether to display numerical, string or both tag values. Some tags (digital) might indicate a status which has a more meaningful text value, e.g.OFF, representation than a numerical value, e.g. 0. Numeric

Get Data

Please note - “Get Data” is part of our legacy API. We highly recommend using the “Get Processed” and “Get Plot” functions instead

Name Required Type Description Default Example
Tag Name(s) true string Comma separated tag names to get data for. n/a Sinusoid,LIC040
Start Date true string Absolute or relative start time to use when performing the data query. n/a *-10d, 2018-01-15
End Date true string Absolute or relative end time to use when performing the data query. n/a *, *-1h, 2020-09-01T00:00:00
Function true option Data function/aggregation to use when performing data query. n/a Interp, Plot, Min, Max, Avg, Raw
Interval false string The sample interval. n/a 20s, 3h, 1d
Number of Points false number The maximum number of points to return per tag. Takes precedence over the Interval parameter if both specified. n/a 10, 150
Display false option Indicate whether to display numerical, string or both tag values. Some tags (digital) might indicate a status which has a more meaningful text value, e.g.OFF, representation than a numerical value, e.g. 0. Numeric

Setting background data refresh

  • Using the web app.
  • Using personal data gateway - instructions available here.
power_bi_connector/getting_started.txt · Last modified: 2024/01/31 14:17 by su