INTEGRATIONSPOWER BIPower BI integration with your systems
The numbers live in your accounting, your CRM and your HR system, and every month someone pastes them into Excel. With an integration, Power BI fetches them itself and everyone looks at the same numbers. The real question is how: with a ready-made connector, through an API, or through an intermediate layer.
ISO 9001 & 27001- Financial figures goes back and forth with Your other systems
- Sales and pipeline goes back and forth with Your other systems
- HR and headcount goes back and forth with Your other systems
- Operational data goes back and forth with Your other systems
Built for clients including Tata Steel, M&G Investments, Digistore24, Toppers in Concert, Bar-le-Duc and Loogman
This is the data organisations most often let flow between systems. Which of it matters to you depends on where work is getting stuck today.
Financial figures
Revenue, costs, margin and outstanding items from your accounting or ERP, per administration, cost centre or period.
Sales and pipeline
Deals, stages and expected revenue from your CRM, next to what was actually invoiced. Only together do they tell you whether the forecast holds.
HR and headcount
Headcount, absence and payroll costs per department. At team level, not per person, unless the report genuinely needs it.
Operational data
Orders, tickets, hours or stock from your online store, service desk or planning. That's where you see a shift first.
Who sees what
With row-level security, a branch manager only sees their own branch, from the same model. For that, the model needs data on which user belongs to which branch.
For each combination: which data moves back and forth, what the standard integration does and what to watch out for.
- Connect AFAS to Power BIConnecting AFAS to Power BI: how BI models and the OData connector work, how often you can refresh, and when you need a GetConnector or intermediate layer.
- Connect Exact Online to Power BIConnecting Exact Online to Power BI? What the Exact Online Premium connector requires, where the API limits bite, and when a middle layer works better.
Not always. If an existing integration for Power BI does exactly what you need, we'll tell you.
Many systems have a connector. Exact Online has the Exact Online Premium connector, made by Exact and still in preview; it requires an Exact Online Premium subscription. AFAS provides BI models and templates you use to build a dashboard in Power BI Desktop. Business Central, Salesforce and SharePoint are also in the connector list.
A connector is enough if you report on one source and a refresh per day or every few hours will do. If numbers from several systems have to sit in one model, with your own mapping of codes or history the source doesn't keep, an intermediate layer often works better: a database where an integration prepares the data and Power BI reads from it.
We can connect any system to Power BI, even when there's no connector for it.
- Your source has no connector, or only an API with tight limits.
- Figures from several administrations or systems have to line up in one model.
- You want to keep history the source overwrites, such as the state of the pipeline at the end of each month.
- You want to show reports to customers or partners in your own portal, each seeing only their own data.
Connectors in Power Query
Power BI fetches data with connectors: for databases, files, a long list of services, and generic connectors for OData and web APIs. Availability, authentication and the need for a gateway differ per connector and per product.
Scheduled refresh
On shared capacity you can schedule up to eight refreshes of a semantic model per day, and each must finish within two hours. On Premium, Premium Per User or Fabric capacity, that's 48 per day and five hours. On shared capacity, refreshes through the REST API count towards the eight.
Gateway for on-premises sources
If a source isn't in the cloud, such as a database on your own server, you need an on-premises data gateway. Microsoft recommends an enterprise gateway rather than a personal one.
REST API and service principal
With the REST API you manage content, trigger refreshes and embed reports in your own application. Access runs through an app in Microsoft Entra ID. An admin has to allow a service principal in the tenant settings first, and it only sees workspaces where it is a member or admin. It doesn't work with My workspace.
Throttling
Power BI limits the number of API calls per user within a time window. Go over it and you get HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header that tells you how many seconds to wait.
An integration moves data. In between, AI can read, sort and prepare a suggestion. Where it matters, a person decides.
Anomalies before the monthly report
Before the numbers reach the report, an AI step in the intermediate layer compares them with previous months and flags notable differences: a cost centre with no entries, revenue that doubles. The controller looks at them before the report goes out.
Commentary on the numbers
AI drafts a first commentary on the monthly figures, based on the model. A person reads and edits it before it goes to management. Numbers in the text come from the model, not from the language model.
Renamed columns
A refresh in the Power BI service fails if a column or table in the source has been renamed or removed. A changed connector or a new API version breaks your report that way. Agree who announces changes to the source in advance.
Security that doesn't apply to everyone
Row-level security only applies to users with the Viewer role. Anyone who is Admin, Member or Contributor in the workspace sees everything. So give people who should see a filtered view the Viewer role only.
Refresh that quietly stops
If nobody opens a report or dashboard on a model for two months, Power BI pauses the scheduled refresh. After repeated failures, Power BI also disables a schedule. Send refresh failure notifications to a team, not to one person.
Limits of the source
Without incremental refresh, Power BI fetches everything again on every refresh. A source with a daily limit, such as Exact Online with 5,000 calls per administration per day, hits it quickly if you query it directly.
What goes where
Which data moves, in which direction, and which system wins when two values differ. That is written down before anything gets built. For this integration, that means: Financial figures, Sales and pipeline, HR and headcount, Operational data, Who sees what.
Fields and rules
For every field, how it translates between the systems: statuses, VAT codes, general ledger accounts, item numbers. And what happens with a duplicate or a missing value. For this integration, that means: Connectors in Power Query, Scheduled refresh, Gateway for on-premises sources, REST API and service principal, Throttling.
Testing with real cases
In a sandbox or test administration, with the exceptions you actually run into: credit notes, partial deliveries, changed customer details.
Live, with logging and monitoring
Every sync is logged, and when something fails, someone gets an alert. If a vendor changes its API, we update the integration.
No account manager. You talk to someone who builds integrations themselves, and who will tell you when a standard integration is enough.
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Does Power BI have an API?
Yes. The Power BI REST API is for managing content, admin tasks and embedding reports in your own application. You need an app in Microsoft Entra ID. Fetching data from your sources is something Power BI does itself, with connectors.
How often does Power BI refresh the data?
On shared capacity up to eight scheduled refreshes per day, on Premium, Premium Per User or Fabric up to 48. You can refresh manually in the service on top of that; manual refreshes don't count towards the eight.
Can I connect Power BI to a system without a connector?
Yes. An integration puts the data from that system into a database, and Power BI reads from there. That spares the source's limits and makes history possible. If the system has an OData feed or a simple web API, Power BI can sometimes read it directly too.
Do I need a gateway for Power BI?
For sources that can't be reached from the cloud, such as a database on your own server. Some connectors always need one: the Exact Online Premium connector needs an on-premises data gateway to refresh.
Can I control which numbers each user sees?
Yes, with row-level security. You define roles and filters in Power BI Desktop and assign users in the Power BI service. It only applies to users with the Viewer role in the workspace.
Sources
The technical facts on this page come from the vendors' official documentation, checked on 19 September 2026. Vendors change their APIs and limits; when we build an integration, we always check the current state.
- Microsoft Learn: Power Query connectors
- Microsoft Learn: Data refresh in Power BI
- Microsoft Learn: Power BI REST APIs
- Microsoft Learn: Power BI with a service principal
- Microsoft Learn: Row-level security (RLS) with Power BI
- Microsoft Learn: Exact Online Premium connector
- AFAS Help Center: Power BI (in Dutch)
- Exact Support: API limits