Issues Connecting Power BI and Raiser's Edge

Matt Cowley

I initially posted the below to the APIs category, but wondering if this is a better place for this post. I've reached out to both Microsoft support and Blackbaud support on this, but have not been able to get this working. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

Power BI connector for Raiser's Edge - authentication issue - Blackbaud Community

Thanks!

Matt Cowley

Database Administrator

Upper Iowa University

Lucy Ruiz

@Matt Cowley I cannot help you right now, but I believe @Amir Sohani might be able to help you. I know he has been working on a step by step guide to augment the Blackbaud video.

Amir Sohani

Hi @Matt Cowley, are you trying to connect to RE through your organization's VPN or from outside the office?

Eliana De Sousa

@Matt Cowley
i don't get that far when i log in to PowerBI desktop and search for the data file it doesn't should up. I've contacting my IT team to see if i'm doing something wrong. i'm at a loss at the moment

Eliana De Sousa

@Matt Cowley
Blackbaud got back to me saying they couldn't help but to post here

Alex Wong

@Matt Cowley @Eliana De Sousa
I had a reply on a community post previously. It has step by step screenshot of what to do and what to look out for (there are some easy pitfall). go through my replies in this post, and most people are able to get it working

Matt Cowley

@Alex Wong I verified that the contents of each of those txt files is coming from the appropriate areas, so unfortunately I'm still experiencing the same issue.

Matt Cowley

@Amir Sohani I am currently trying to connect this from within our campus environment/domain, so internally on our network.

Alex Wong

@Matt Cowley
please show a screenshot of the mez file and the folder location

Matt Cowley

@Alex Wong here you go. There are two different ones as I've gone through the process twice now.

Thanks!

Alex Wong

@Matt Cowley
I just went back to your other post and notice that you are getting the Blackbaud custom connector in Power BI Desktop already, but is failing the authentication. If that is the case, then your mez file is probably ok.

If your authentication isn't working, you may want to check your subscription key client id /secret, then check your access level (at least a read only), and disconnect form marketplace and reconnect.

Matt Cowley

@Alex Wong when you mentioned “check your subscription key client id /secret”, what do I need to check about that? Also, as far as disconnecting, are you referring to this area below that I should disconnect from, and reconnect to?

Alex Wong

@Matt Cowley
In the post I linked, one of my reply's screenshot:

This is what I mean by checking your subscription key client id and client secret correctly updated in the Blackbaud.mez file.

And yes, your screenshot is where you would disconnect the application and reconnect it

Matt Cowley

@Alex Wong ok. I have verified/checked those items. I just disconnected the environment. Tomorrow (Friday) I will try to figure out how to reconnect the environment as I didn't see an area to quickly or easily do this. It's probably something easy that I'm just not seeing. Thanks for all your responses!

Matt Cowley

@Alex Wong I wanted to follow up with you and close the loop on this. I FINALLY got this figured out and, it was completely my fault in missing a step, so I take full responsibility ?. Here's what happened/what I missed. In the scope area, rather than selecting Limited data access, I chose Full access, thinking that would be what I needed. Well obviously, that wasn't the case. Once I changed the scope appropriately, I was all set! I wanted to say thank you SO MUCH for all of your help, guidance and tips; I very much appreciated your responses.

Take care!

Matt Cowley