Documentation forSolarWinds Service Desk

BETA: Power BI Connector

SolarWinds Service Desk documentation for the Early Access Program: The following content includes descriptions of features that are part of an early access program. All content is subject to change.

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Introduction

The SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD) Power BI Connector lets you import incident records from SWSD to Microsoft Power BI. You can import records from the past two years. You will have raw data on the topics most relevant to your organization, which you can then analyze and review by viewing it in a variety of formats, such as tables, graphs, and charts.

SolarWinds owns the connector and is a member of the Microsoft Power Query Connector Certification Program. If you have questions regarding the content of this article or want to request a change to it, provide feedback at the bottom of the page.

Connect to SolarWinds Service Desk

The instructions below contain special steps for customers who previously used the SWSD Power BI Connector and want to move to the new out-of-the-box version.
Prerequisites: You must have (1) the latest version of Power BI Desktop and (2) an SWSD user who has set up token authentication for API integration.
  1. In Power BI Desktop, from Home select Get Data. From the categories on the left, select Other, and then select SolarWinds Service Desk.

    Note for previous users:

    If you are a previous user of the SWSD Power BI Connector, after clicking Other you may see multiple SolarWinds options. Be sure to select the one named SolarWinds Service Desk with a capital W in SolarWinds.

    DO NOT select Solarwinds Service Desk (with a lower case W) or SWSD_Connector.

  2. After making the selection, click Connect.

  3. Sign in with the JSON Web Token you generated as described in the Prerequisites, and then click Connect to verify your access to SWSD.

  4. In the Navigator dialog box, select the table you want to import. You can then either load or transform the data.

  5. After completion of the steps above, Confirm that you see:

    Model name: Incidents

    Data Source name: SolarWinds Service Desk

Additional steps for previous users

  1. Go to the model that was created when you used the old file system connector, and then right-click Edit query. A Power Query Editor opens.

  2. On the right, under Applied Steps, click Source.

  3. In the function section, in the middle of the editor look for the following line: SolarwindsServiceDesk.Contents() or SWSD_connector.Contents()

  4. Change it to SolarWindsServiceDesk.Contents so it looks like this:

  5. Click Close & Apply.

Publishing reports

All customers publishing to the Power BI Service (Cloud) need to perform the steps below. This applies to both first-time publishers and those who have published in the past.

  1. Publish the report to Power BI Service Workspace, based on the out-of-the-box connector.

  2. Go to this report dataset setting in the Power BI Service:

  3. Open the Datasource credentials section and edit the credentials with the key and token you used when you establish connection with the connector in desktop Power BI.

Your reports in Desktop and Cloud are now connected to and using the new version of SolarWinds Service Desk Connector.

You can remove the old data source and old connector from your file system.

Limitations and issues

Users should be aware of the following limitations and issues associated with accessing SolarWinds Service Desk:

  • You can import only once per day; that is, once every 24 hours. If you attempt to refresh prior to the allowed 24-hour cycle, you will receive an error message.

  • There is no limit on the number of users who can pull data, but each user can refresh only once every 24 hours.

  • Only incident data is imported, providing historical details from January 1, 2020 to date. The incident fields that are imported are limited. If you need to import a field that is not available, you can request that it be added. If you have any questions about what can be imported or issues with the PowerBI integration, please email Rinat.Gil@solarwinds.com.

Credential error in the Navigator

If a credential error occurs in the Navigator, clear your recent data source settings.

  1. In Power BI Desktop, select File > Data source settings.

  2. Select the SWSD data source, and then select Clear permissions.

  3. Establish the connection to the Navigator again.

Fields under incidents in Power BI Connector

Field name UI field name Type/size Description Format
Id API Only Integer Incident's unique ID in the system int
number Number Integer Incident's unique number in the system int
name Title String The name of the incident string
description_no_html Description String The description of the incident string or null
state State String The state of the incident string
priority Priority String The priority of the incident. The default is High/Medium/Critical, Low, and None string
category_name Category String The category the incident is related to string
subcategory_name Subcategory String The subcategory the incident is related to string
assignee_name Assigned To String The name of the assignee for the incident string
assignee_email Assigned To String The email of the assignee for the incident string <email>
requester_name Requester String The name of the requester for the incident string
requester_email Requester String The email of the requester for the incident string <email>
created_by_name Requester String The name of the creator of the incident string
created_by_email Requester String The email of the creator of the incident string <email>
created_at Created At Date time The date and time the incident was created date time
updated_at Updated At Date time The date and time the incident was last updated date time
resolved_by_name Resolution String The name of the person who resolved the incident string
resolved_by_email Resolution String The email of the person who resolved the incident string <email>
resolved_at Resolution Date time The date and time the incident was resolved date time
is_service_request Icon in the title of the incident Boolean Identifies whether or not the incident was created from a service request boolean
currency Currency String Currency of the service request string
resolution_code Resolution String Resolution type provided when the incident is resolved string
resolution_description

Description Resolve

String Description provided when an incident is resolved string
origin Incident origin String Where the incident was created from: Web/Email/Portal/API etc string
cc CC String Identifies whether a person is included in the CC in each action on an incident strings array

custom_fields_values

Name

Value

Type

Array of Objects

String

String

String

Custom fields related to the incident

array of objects

due_at Due at Date time Due date and time for the incident date time
site_name Site String The site name string
department_name Department String The department name string
price Price Integer The price in the service request int
sla_violations

sla_name

sla_type

assignee_name

resolved

String

String

String

Boolean

Statistics that represent SLA (service-level agreement) rules that failed for the incident. array of objects

tags [] of objects, with the following data:

name

Tags String List of tags related to the incident array of strings
to_assignment

Service statistics
->Time passed since creation:

To Assignment

String Time passed until the incident was assigned to

string
<hours>:<minutes>:<seconds> or hh:mm:ss

For example: "00:04:14"

to_first_response_business_time

Service statistics
->Time passed since creation:

To First Response (Business)

String Time passed until the incident has it first response

string

<hours>:<minutes>:<seconds> or hh:mm:ss

For example: "00:04:13"

to_resolve_business_time

Service statistics
->Time passed since creation:

To Resolution (Business)

String Time passed until the incident was resolved

string

<hours>:<minutes>:<seconds> or hh:mm:ss

For example: "11:22:00"