Power BI to Service Now

[riaz_mansuri]

Hi,

We are thinking of using Power BI as a reporting tool from Service Now. What I would like to know is:

1. What is the best way to form the connection between the 2 systems. Does a connector exist?

2. Anyone aware of any licencing restrictions?

3. Can this impact performance on Service Now?

Thanks

Riaz

[Ankur Bawiskar · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Please find points below:

1. If you are planning to allow Power BI to fetch ServiceNow data then you can either use OOB table API or Scripted REST API - no license issue here
2. If you are planning to consume Power BI API and push data from ServiceNow by consuming REST or SOAP message then also there won't be any license issue.

Impact in performance - If Power BI is consuming ServiceNow endpoint like once in every 5mins or less to pull the table data it would lead to impact to the instance. I would suggest to do this in off-business hours.

Refer below links for help

connect ServiceNow and PowerBI via REST API in order to build reports and publish them on PowerBI Se...

How to explore serviceNow Data with Power BI

Show reports in power bi for problem list

Connecting to RestAPI from Excel or PowerBI and getting all fields in security incident to display

Regards
Ankur

[riaz_mansuri]

Thanks Ankur, this is great and what I was looking for 

[rahulpandey]

Hi Riaz,

There are couple of ways to connect to Power BI

- I think, powerbi has something called web connector.

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Fetching-data-from-ServiceNow-in-power-query/m-p/439297#

- Content packs :  There is content pack available for servicenow incident. Reference:

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/fr-fr/blog/explore-your-servicenow-data-with-power-bi/

- Rest API, This would be custom solution built and managed by you. This will not cost you additional charges.

- ODBC connection, below article may help you.

https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/servicenow-odbc-power-bi.rst

Performance overload: Yes, since we are talking about bulk export data from servicenow to another tool. It will definitely add up to existing but, will it impact you ? it depends on several environment variables, Exiting overload, number worker nodes, live vs delayed reporting, volumes etc. Personally, as per my experience, I have seen ServiceNow performing very well with really complex and large data volumes 🙂 I would suggest assess this point in your environment.

Hopefully above will help you.

[riaz_mansuri]

Thank you this is great and very helpful.