Power BI Writeback to SAP HANA
26-10-2023
Introduction
To start with, the Writeback Grid works best when combining it with the "DirectQuery" connection mode. This allows you to write back data in real-time and instantly see the changes reflected in all the other visuals used across a report. Follow this link to learn more about using the SAP Hana connector supporting this DirectQuery mode. If you still want to use "Import" mode, the Writeback Grid custom visual also enables unlimited Power BI dataset refresh, read more here.
Prerequisites
Connecting Power BI to SAP Hana
If you currently have no access to SAP HANA, you can also create a free SAP HANA Cloud Trial account here, which we did for this showcase. We used the credentials received via email and entered the SAP HANA Database Explorer in the browser to find out the "Host", the port is 443 in case of using SAP HANA cloud.
The first thing you will realize is that the DirectQuery using this SAP HANA connector might not give you back any "Content" which seems to be a bug in the connector.
Now, you have two options to bypass this bug, you can either use the ODBC standard connector which only supports "Import" mode, or you can use the native SQL query support like we did. We imported and used the SFLIGHT sample database for this demo, read more here.
Configuring Writeback Grid Custom Visual
To finally configure the Writeback Grid for Dataverse, you simply need to navigate to the Format pane within your Power BI report and you will find the following fields to be populated under the "Config" section:
If you face any issues, please let us know info@creativedata.io
To start with, the Writeback Grid works best when combining it with the "DirectQuery" connection mode. This allows you to write back data in real-time and instantly see the changes reflected in all the other visuals used across a report. Follow this link to learn more about using the SAP Hana connector supporting this DirectQuery mode. If you still want to use "Import" mode, the Writeback Grid custom visual also enables unlimited Power BI dataset refresh, read more here.
Prerequisites
- Power BI license
- Writeback Grid Custom Visual
- SAP Hana database access
Connecting Power BI to SAP Hana
If you currently have no access to SAP HANA, you can also create a free SAP HANA Cloud Trial account here, which we did for this showcase. We used the credentials received via email and entered the SAP HANA Database Explorer in the browser to find out the "Host", the port is 443 in case of using SAP HANA cloud.
The first thing you will realize is that the DirectQuery using this SAP HANA connector might not give you back any "Content" which seems to be a bug in the connector.
Now, you have two options to bypass this bug, you can either use the ODBC standard connector which only supports "Import" mode, or you can use the native SQL query support like we did. We imported and used the SFLIGHT sample database for this demo, read more here.
Configuring Writeback Grid Custom Visual
To finally configure the Writeback Grid for Dataverse, you simply need to navigate to the Format pane within your Power BI report and you will find the following fields to be populated under the "Config" section:
If you face any issues, please let us know info@creativedata.io