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.

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.
After making the selection, click Connect.
Sign in with the JSON Web Token you generated as described in the Prerequisites, and then click Connect to verify your access to SWSD.
In the Navigator dialog box, select the table you want to import. You can then either load or transform the data.
After completion of the steps above, Confirm that you see:

Model name: Incidents

Data Source name: SolarWinds Service Desk

Additional steps for previous users

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.
On the right, under Applied Steps, click Source.
In the function section, in the middle of the editor look for the following line: SolarwindsServiceDesk.Contents() or SWSD_connector.Contents()
Change it to SolarWindsServiceDesk.Contents so it looks like this:
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.

Publish the report to Power BI Service Workspace, based on the out-of-the-box connector.
Go to this report dataset setting in the Power BI Service:
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.

In Power BI Desktop, select File > Data source settings.
Select the SWSD data source, and then select Clear permissions.
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"

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