Using the REST API with Microsoft Power BI

This article covers the REST API, which allows our customers to PULL data from ChurnZero.
If you are looking for information on the HTTP API, which allows our customers to PUSH data to ChurnZero, you can find documentation here. 

Please Note: The ChurnZero REST API is an add-on feature. Please contact your ChurnZero Customer Success Manager for pricing and feature activation. 

In order to use the REST API with Power BI, the API must be enabled and an API Key must be created for the User Account who will be using the API. Once configured, Power BI can be used to execute queries against your data with the REST API.

To assist in creating your OData queries, the Generate Query tool can be used to generate queries directly in the ChurnZero application from the Admin space (Data > API Keys).   

1. Generate an OData query link by navigating to the API Keys page and clicking on the Generate Query button:
   
2. From the Generate Query modal, select an Entity (and an optional Segment and/or Column Set) from the dropdowns and copy the link that is generated. This will be the query link you use in Power BI to retrieve your data (note, multiple queries can be generated and used):
   

• Pro Tip: To increase the speed of your queries, it is always a good idea to utilize Segments and Column Sets! These will help in reducing load and refining your data to return more targeted and useful results.

1. From the Power BI Get Data menu, select OData Feed:
2. In the OData feed popup, paste the link you created from the query generator in the URL field and click OK:
3. In the next popup, select Basic from the left menu. For the User name, enter the ChurnZero username and for Password enter the API Key that was added for the user in the ChurnZero application when configuring the REST API. Once finished, click the Connect button:
4.  Once connected, you will be given a preview and have the option to Load or Transform the data.
   
   Pro Tip: Transform Data will allow you to expand Record or List value columns out to their own columns but be careful! If the columns you wish to transform are not part of the original query, extra queries will be executed behind the scenes to fetch the data thus slowing down execution and possibly triggering rate limits. To retrieve this data more effectively, utilize Segments and Column Sets to return all the data you need in one query.
   
   Click the Load button for your query to begin execution:
5. A popup will appear showing the loading progress until your data is retrieved:
6. Repeat steps 1 - 7 to load additional queries into Power BI if desired.