Nektar

Note: This article assumes a basic understanding of APIs and how they work. Also, one caveat of this solution is that your authentication token will expire after 30 days and must be refreshed/re-entered. This is due to Power BI not currently being able to properly handle APIs that make use of bearer token authentication.

Power BI is a powerful reporting tool developed by Microsoft, used across many industries to create advanced analytical views of data within a business. It is possible to leverage the Nektar API to view your Nektar data within Power BI, here's how -

First, browse to <a href="https://api.nektar.io" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://api.nektar.io</a> and click on documentation.

- First, browse to <a href="https://api.nektar.io" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://api.nektar.io</a> and click on documentation.

You will be presented by Nektar's Swagger documentation for the API. This interactive documentation allows you to view and test out endpoints without any coding knowledge. For this article, we are only really interested in the Authenticate endpoint. This endpoint will allow us to enter a username and password (make sure the user has API permission in Permission Manager) and receive an authentication token back that we will later use in Power BI.

Expand the Authenticate endpoint, and click Try it out on the top right. Next, enter your username, password, and (optionally) an IANA timezone string. Then click Execute.

If all goes well, you will be given a response message for the server that contains an "access_token". Copy this value (without the quotations), we will need it in Power BI.

Next, head to Power BI. Click on Get Data and then choose Web

In the popup, select Advanced, then enter your API endpoint URL. This is the URL for the endpoint from the API that contains the data you want to use in Power BI. For our example, we'll use the datasource endpoint. Next, you want to add an HTTP header at the bottom that has a parameter name of Authorization and a value of "bearer yourtokenhere" (replace yourtokenhere with the token you copied from the Swagger docs. Finally, click OK.

If displayed with the following screen (it may only occur the first time you connect), make sure Anonymous authentication is selected (since we already added an authentication token in the header value) and click Connect.

That's it! You can now make use of your Nektar API endpoint data from within Power BI. *Remember, your token will expire every 30 days and will need to be refreshed in Power BI.

- You will be presented by Nektar's Swagger documentation for the API. This interactive documentation allows you to view and test out endpoints without any coding knowledge. For this article, we are only really interested in the Authenticate endpoint. This endpoint will allow us to enter a username and password (make sure the user has API permission in Permission Manager) and receive an authentication token back that we will later use in Power BI. 
 
 
 
- Expand the Authenticate endpoint, and click Try it out on the top right. Next, enter your username, password, and (optionally) an IANA timezone string. Then click Execute. 
 
 
- If all goes well, you will be given a response message for the server that contains an "access_token". Copy this value (without the quotations), we will need it in Power BI. 
 
 
- Next, head to Power BI. Click on Get Data and then choose Web 

- In the popup, select Advanced, then enter your API endpoint URL. This is the URL for the endpoint from the API that contains the data you want to use in Power BI. For our example, we'll use the datasource endpoint. Next, you want to add an HTTP header at the bottom that has a parameter name of Authorization and a value of "bearer yourtokenhere" (replace yourtokenhere with the token you copied from the Swagger docs. Finally, click OK. 

- If displayed with the following screen (it may only occur the first time you connect), make sure Anonymous authentication is selected (since we already added an authentication token in the header value) and click Connect. 

- That's it! You can now make use of your Nektar API endpoint data from within Power BI. *Remember, your token will expire every 30 days and will need to be refreshed in Power BI.