Connect Power BI to your database
Use your hosted database as a data source in Microsoft Power BI.
Power BI Desktop runs on your computer, so it connects to your MSSQL database from outside our network. You enable remote access for the database once and then add it in Power BI as a SQL Server data source.
Enable remote access
Open your database
Sign in to the Control Panel, go to Databases and open the database.
Enable remote access
In the Remote access panel switch remote access to Enabled. See Allow remote access to a database.
Note the login details
You will need the public Server address, the name of the database, the Login and the Password from this panel.
Connect from Power BI Desktop
Add a SQL Server data source
Start Power BI Desktop and select Import data from SQL Server.
Enter the server and the database
In the window that opens fill in the public server address (for example
dbXXXX.public.databaseasp.net) and the database name from the Control Panel, and click OK.Choose database authentication
In the next step select Database in the left menu — this is important, the default Windows sign-in does not work. Fill in the database login and password and click Connect.
Power BI Desktop is now connected to your database and you can work with its tables.
Cannot connect?
- Check that you use the public server address and that remote access is still Enabled.
- After several attempts with a wrong password your IP address is blocked for 24 hours — see Database connection blocked after failed logins.
- For everything else go through Cannot connect to the database.