Power BI Connector

The BEEM Power BI connector provides a native Get Data experience with DirectQuery and Import mode support.

Prerequisites

• BEEM ODBC Driver installed on the same machine
• A backend ODBC driver (Amazon Redshift or PostgreSQL) installed
• Power BI Desktop

Install the connector

The Windows installer installs the connector
for you, signed, and trusts its certificate so Power BI loads it without you
changing any security settings. Install it and skip to the next section.

Restart Power BI Desktop after installing so it picks the connector up.

Manual install

Only if you are not using the installer. The connector ships unsigned this way,
so Power BI will refuse to load it until you lower its extension security.

1. Download BEEM.mez from the
   latest release

2. Copy it to the custom connectors folder, creating it if needed:

   %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Power BI Desktop\Custom Connectors\

   Some Power BI builds use Microsoft Power BI Desktop instead of
   Power BI Desktop. If the connector does not appear, copy it to both.

3. Go to File > Options and settings > Options > Security > Data Extensions
   and select Allow any extension to load without warning

4. Restart Power BI Desktop

Connect to your data

1. Click Get Data
2. Search for BEEM and select BEEM Platform
3. Enter the Data source name (DSN) — BEEM unless you named it something
   else
4. Under Data Connectivity mode, choose Import or DirectQuery (see
   below)
5. Choose how to authenticate:
   • UsernamePassword — enter your warehouse username and password. This
     is the normal choice. Power BI stores them in its own encrypted
     credential store and sends them with each connection.
   • Anonymous — sends no credentials, relying on a UID and PWD stored
     in the DSN itself. Setup does not put them there, because a DSN keeps them
     in cleartext.
6. Click Connect

The navigator shows your workspace tables. Expand a schema to see its tables and views.

Credentials are remembered per DSN. To change them later, go to File > Options
and settings > Data source settings, select the BEEM source and choose Edit
Permissions.

DirectQuery vs Import

Gateway deployment

For scheduled refresh in Power BI Service (cloud), the BEEM ODBC Driver must be installed on the On-Premises Data Gateway machine:

1. Install the ODBC driver on the gateway machine (see Windows installation)
2. Create a System DSN with the connection details
3. Copy the connector into the gateway's custom connectors folder:

   C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\PBIEgwService\Documents\Power BI Desktop\Custom Connectors\

   The installer places BEEM.pqx under %USERPROFILE%\Documents\... for the
   installing user; the gateway runs as its own service account, so copy the
   file across rather than expecting it to be there.
4. Restart the gateway service
5. In Power BI Service, configure the data source under Manage gateways using the DSN