Power BI Analytics Overview

Learn how to connect Foreman data to Power BI using the built-in data gateway for live dashboards, scheduled reports, and analytics without manual exports.

What is Power BI Analytics?

Power BI Analytics is a read-only data feed that lets your organisation pull live Foreman data into Power BI for dashboards, scheduled reports, and ad-hoc analysis. Instead of CSV exports or screenshots, your BI team gets a stable HTTP API they can refresh on a schedule, with the same row-level data the in-app analytics pages use.

The integration is designed for the standard Power BI on-premises data gateway — no custom connector needed, no Microsoft marketplace listing, no extra infrastructure beyond what most enterprise Power BI deployments already run.

Who is this for?

Tenant administrators who issue and revoke API tokens, and choose how requester PII is exposed.
BI / analytics teams who configure the Power BI gateway, build the M queries, and design the dashboards.
Stakeholders consuming the dashboards (project managers, compliance, leadership) — they don't need to interact with Foreman directly.

Available datasets

Two domains ship in the first release. Each domain exposes a small set of flat tables that map cleanly to Power BI's relational model.

Access Requests (3 tables)

Table	Grain
`access-requests`	One row per request — status, requester, timestamps, response time
`access-request-activities`	One row per state change (submitted, approved, rejected, provisioned, ...)
`access-request-forms`	Form definitions used as a dimension

QA/QC (4 tables)

Table	Grain
`qa-check-runs`	One row per run — pass/fail/total counts, duration, trigger
`qa-check-results`	One row per violation — flat enough for Power BI to group by rule or severity natively
`qa-rules`	Rule dimension
`qa-rule-sets`	Rule set dimension

Every dataset is scoped to your tenant by the API token. You can never accidentally pull another customer's data — the token's tenant pin is enforced server-side, regardless of which user issued it.

What you get out of the box

Stable JSON shape — every endpoint returns { rows, nextCursor, schemaVersion } so M queries don't break when we add columns.
Cursor pagination — Power BI's List.Generate walks through pages without timing out on large datasets.
Incremental refresh — every dataset has a canonical updated_at_utc column you can drive RangeStart/RangeEnd against. The first refresh after an upgrade is full; every subsequent refresh only pulls what changed.
Per-token rate limit — 600 requests per 15-minute window, more than enough for hourly refreshes of multiple dashboards.
Audit trail — every API call is logged with the token name, endpoint, and timestamp, viewable on the admin page.

What it is not

Not a write API. Tokens are read-only — Power BI cannot create or modify records.
Not a real-time feed. It's a pull-based REST API designed for scheduled refresh, not streaming.
Not a custom Power BI connector. Customers who want a click-to-install .mez connector with branded auth UI should contact us — that's a separate roadmap item.

Plan availability

Power BI Analytics is available on the Business plan and above.