Power BI Rest API

Overview

Power BI is primarily used for data visualization and business intelligence. It helps users connect to various data sources, transform and model data, and create interactive dashboards and reports to analyze and share insights. Essentially, it turns raw data into actionable insights through visualizations.

So, to fetch fresh data over the connected data source, a refresh is needed; it can be scheduled or manual. 

If you want to perform some action based on refresh history, like trigger a refresh on failure or send an email, the Power BI Rest APIs come into play.

Power BI REST APIs allow you to automate tasks like

• Viewing dataset refresh history
• Triggering a dataset refresh

To use these APIs securely, you must first authenticate using Microsoft Azure AD and get an access token.

Authentication with Microsoft Azure

To use Power BI APIs, you need to:

1. Register an App in Azure Portal
2. Assign Permissions
3. Use Python to get the access token

Steps to Register App

1. 1. Go to Azure Portal
   2. Navigate to: Azure Active Directory > App registrations > New registration
   3. Set:
      • Name: Any name (e.g., PowerBI-API-App)
      • Redirect URI: http://localhost (for desktop app)

1. Once created, copy:
   • Tenant ID
   • Client ID
2. Go to Certificates & secrets > Create a new Client Secret

Add API Permissions

• Go to API Permissions > Add a permission > Power BI Service
• Choose Delegated or Application permissions:
  • Dataset.Read.All
  • Dataset.ReadWrite.All

 Get Access Token Using Python

import requests

TENANT_ID = “your-tenant-id”

CLIENT_ID = “your-client-id”

CLIENT_SECRET = “your-client-secret”

SCOPE = “https://analysis.windows.net/powerbi/api/.default”

def get_access_token():

    url = f”https://login.microsoftonline.com/{TENANT_ID}/oauth2/v2.0/token”

    data = {

        “grant_type”: “client_credentials”,

        “client_id”: CLIENT_ID,

        “client_secret”: CLIENT_SECRET,

        “scope”: SCOPE

    }

    response = requests.post(url, data=data)

    return response.json().get(“access_token”)

Power BI API Endpoints

1. Get Dataset Refresh History

GET

https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/{groupId}/datasets/{datasetId}/refreshes

Returns the last refreshes for a dataset.

2. Trigger Dataset Refresh

POST

https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/{groupId}/datasets/{datasetId}/refreshes

Triggers a new refresh for the dataset.

Use API with Python

 Fetch Refresh History

def get_refresh_history(group_id, dataset_id, access_token):

    url = f”https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/{group_id}/datasets/{dataset_id}/refreshes”

    headers = {

        “Authorization”: f”Bearer {access_token}”

    }

    response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)

    return response.json()

Trigger Refresh

def trigger_dataset_refresh(group_id, dataset_id, access_token):

    url = f”https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/{group_id}/datasets/{dataset_id}/refreshes”

    headers = {

        “Authorization”: f”Bearer {access_token}”

    }

    response = requests.post(url, headers=headers)

    return response.status_code, response.json()