Single sign-on for SAP in Power BI – If you are reading this you probably already know the value of SSO and are looking to utilise it for SAP and Power BI. In this blog post we’ve covered all you need to know to streamline your operations and take a step further to becoming a data-driven enterprise.
Some of the questions we will answer are: What do I need to do to start using SAP data from Power BI? How does SSO work? What configurations do I need to do? What does your custom connector do?
The demand for single sign-on for SAP data in Power BIÂ
We’ve been rather busy helping SAP customers use their data in Power BI recently ( and have been getting quite good at it too). Most recently we’ve developed a solution for single-sign on (SSO) to access SAP data from Power BI due to the popular demand and lack of a straightforward option previously.Â
We recommend using oData services to load the data from SAP to Power BI. They allow authentication to the application with an SAP user for data security and licensing reasons as well as providing a fully-featured API to the SAP functionality and modelled data.Â
However, the need to enter an SAP username and password into Power BI is almost always an impediment. Some organisations don’t even have passwords anymore as they’ve used SSO for years. Others simply don’t like the user experience and want to streamline the path to becoming a data-driven enterprise as much as they can.Â
OAuth for oDataÂ
The industry standard for secure single sign-on (SSO) access to APIs is OAuth 2.0. It is fully supported by SAP and Azure Active Directory, but there are a few SAP-specific quirks…Â Â Â
Power BI allows the use of OAuth 2.0 through custom data connectors. Therefore – we’ve developed a custom connector especially for accessing SAP data in Power BI.Â
How does the single sign-on for SAP in Power BI work?
First, you must configure Azure Active Directory and SAP to work together, and add a suitable OAuth scope for your oData service. The setup is not particularly straightforward to troubleshoot if there are any issues. Get in touch when you get to this stage – we are happy to provide the relevant expertise to support the set up.
Absoft’s custom data connector implements an SAP-specific variant of an OAuth authentication flow in Power BI, displaying any required Azure AD prompts to the user before accessing the data without any need to enter an SAP username and password.
What else can be done with a custom data connector for SAP?
Have you struggled to pass through oData queries? To specify a specific logon client? Or to bring data in the correct format with annotations into Power BI?
Our custom connector can solve this as well as other common challenges with SAP data in Power BI.
How do I get the custom connector?
Are you interested in using our custom connector for single-sign on (SSO) to access SAP data from Power BI? Please get in touch to get more information and discuss your project with our specialists.
Article by:Â Robert MacDonald, Innovation and Technology Manager
Bob is responsible for bringing the latest SAP technology to Absoft and its customers across industry sectors. From a technical background, he specialises in identifying efficiencies in running SAP through automation, monitoring and optimisation. He has worked on supporting, implementing and upgrading SAP for over 10 years, and is now launching the newest innovations in automation.
