API Connections with Power BI

This course is a comprehensive, hands-on guide designed to empower students with the skills to connect Power BI to real-world APIs and external data sources. From foundational concepts to advanced API handling, students learn how to automate data retrieval and build dynamic, up-to-date dashboards using APIs, M language, and Power Query.

Throughout the course, students explore:

What APIs are and how they function in data communication.
The structure of API endpoints, query parameters, headers, and authentication methods (including token-based and OAuth2).
Different types of APIs available (weather, stock, financial, and more).
Practical implementation of API connections directly in Power BI, including:

Handling pagination
Incremental data loading
Building custom dataflows
Advanced M language techniques for dynamic queries and data transformation.
How to use web scraping techniques when APIs are not available.
Security best practices when connecting to external services.

 

✅ After Completing This Course, Students Will Be Able To:

1. Understand and use APIs confidently in Power BI projects, enabling access to dynamic, real-time data.
2. Set up and authenticate connections with public and private APIs (including OAuth2 flows).
3. Use Power Query (M language) to handle API parameters, pagination, filtering, and transformations.
4. Automate data refreshes via Power BI Service using APIs and dataflows.
5. Work with advanced techniques like incremental load, custom functions, and token refresh logic.
6. Extract data from websites using web scraping when APIs are not available.
7. Build professional-grade dashboards that integrate external and structured data seamlessly.