Groov EPIC and Microsoft Power BI

#1

In the past, I have introduced groov EPIC features to our top managers.
When explaining about groov View dashboard, this term always comes up from my audience; Power BI.
And I go like, “I do not know what Power BI is, but I am sure groov View can also do that.”

After believing this for a long time, I finally came to conclusion that, we cannot beat Power BI, it is totally a different beast. As the saying goes, If you can’t beat them, join them.

It is my day-1 learning about Power BI, but I am thinking how to share data from groov EPIC to Power BI application.

  1. Will I need a server running in between?
  2. Could I just write a CSV file locally in groov epic, will power BI be able to read that on demand?
  3. How about getting data thru restful API?
  4. How about the data store?

Any thoughts about Power BI?

#2

Power BI? Never heard of it… till you mentioned it.
Looks interesting, I pulled it down, installed it and had a play for a few hours… Interesting indeed.
As you say, it is a very different beast. My very short take away, Power BI is for managers, groov View is for operators. The other big factor is that Power BI does not seem to be optimized for mobile (or web browsers) at all.
There clearly (in my mind) is room for both… Which brings us to your next set of questions… How to get data from EPIC to Power BI?

While there a lot of data connectors in Power BI, sadly there are no RESTful or MQTT connectors.
The most obvious next choice is MSSQL or MySQL.
At your central HQ location, run EPIC with groov View for an overview of your remote sites and Node-RED for pushing each remote sites data into a central database. (See my answer to your other question about VPN vs MQTT).
From that database Power BI can then pull any reports that you feel inclined to generate on the sites or as a whole.

#3

I guess I need to embrace communicating to a database. I acquired this database phobia, when I was communicating to it with soft-pac, datalink and kepserver. I encounter a dozens of error and do not have a tool (don’t know how) to see if it is working or not, a tool to see thru database. I only assume it is working when there is no error.

But I also believe in Kiss, especially at the beginning of project. So what I’ll do is, append data to csv file once a day. And somehow, manually copy it to a central server. That way I factor out communication error between two worlds. :smile:

#4

What is the ‘central server’ that you refer to?
You could write the CSV file to EPIC and have Power BI read that.

#5

Hello Ben,

Central Server I refer to, a network drive, where users can share files in windows environment.
Have you tried that, Power BI reading data from CSV stored in EPIC?

By the way, I found a node-red for Power BI, looks like another option.
But still I am finding time to play with Power BI.

#6

At the moment EPIC does not have Windows Network drive connectivity, so you will need to find another way to move the CSV file over (FTP?).

I have not had time to test PowerBI to EPIC connectivity.

Saw the PowerBI Nodes, I was a little confused how they might work or what options they open up… I just don’t have enough experience with PowerBI I guess.

#7

Eugene,

Looking at the options in Power BI on how information can come in, could you use Excel?

We have an example on how to make a REST API call from Excel that you can find on developer.opto22.com under Code Samples and Videos.

Excel Example: https://www.opto22.com/support/resources-tools/downloads/2251_logging_groov_data_to_excel-zip

This excel file could reside on the same machine as your Power BI server and make REST calls to your Groov EPIC, and your Power BI instance could pull the data from that Excel file.