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Microsoft Power BI connector

Overview

In this article, you learn how to connect to Microsoft Power BI and how to consume your Sitefinity Insight marketing data to create reports.

PREREQUISITES:
  • You must have downloaded and installed the Power BI Desktop client from the Microsoft Download center or Microsoft Store.
  • For the Insight Power BI connector to work, you must have a paid Sitefinity Insight subscription or to be in active trial period.
    For more information, or to upgrade your subscription, contact sitefinitysales@progress.com.
  • You must configure the security setting of Power BI to enable installing of unsigned extensions.
    Perform the following:
    1. In the toolbar, click File » Options and settings » Options.
      The Options dialog appears.
    2. Click Security.
    3. Under Data extensions, click Allow any extension to load without validation or warning.
    4. To confirm, click OK.
    5. Restart Power BI.
  • To access data about Contacts and Interactions, you need to have activated Parquet data export.
    For more information, see Data export in Parquet format.

Install the connector

To install the Sitefinity Insight connector, perform the following:

  1. Download the Insight Power BI connector.
  2. If Power BI is running, close it.
  3. Place the downloaded file in <Documents>\Power BI Desktop\Custom Connectors directory.
    Where <Documents> is the path to your documents directory, usually located at %userprofile%\Documents. If this directory structure does not exist, you must create it manually.
  4. Start Power BI.
  5. To verify that the Sitefinity Insight connector is correctly installed, in the toolbar, click Home » Get Data » Online services and check that the connector named Progress Sitefinity Insight (Beta) exists.

Connect to Power BI

To connect Power BI to your data in Sitefinity Insight, perform the following:

  1. Generate a new Sitefinity Insight Access key.
    For more information, see Access keys. Do not close the window with the generated key before using it in the steps below.

    RECOMMENDATION: To improve security, we recommend generating a new access key and not reusing an existing one. Additionally, we recommend copying your access key from Sitefinity Insight Administration dashboard into Power BI and not storing it in clear text anywhere.

  2. In the Power BI toolbar, click Home » Get Data » Online services » Progress Sitefinity Insight (Beta) » Connect.
    If this is the first time you start the extension, the Progress Sitefinity Insight Access Key window appears.
  3. Enter the access key from Step 1 and click Connect.
    The Navigator window opens.
  4. Select the checkboxes of all the required metrics and click Load.
    The Load window appears while Power BI connects to your data in Sitefinity Insight. Depending on the data set, this may take a few minutes.

RESULT: Your data from Sitefinity Insight is ready to use in Power BI.
For more information about building reports, see Create reports and dashboards in Power BI.

NOTE: If your access key grants access to multiple data centers, the data from all of them will be available inside Power BI.

Insight data provided by the Power BI connector

In this section, you will a short description of the Insight metrics, artefacts, and auxiliary data that you can use in your Power BI reports. All of these are provided in Power BI tables.

The Sitefinity Insight connector exposes the data in a Star schema. The values that you aggregate and show in reports are exposed as the following Fact tables:

Sitefinity Insight Metric name Power BI connector table Short metric description Visualized in Sitefinity Insight
Uplift Uplift The uplift, which a defined touchpoint, has towards a defined conversion.
  • Uplift screen
  • Touchpoints details screen » Conversion Uplift section
  • Conversions details screen » Uplift by touchpoints section
Conversions by persona statistics ConversionsByPersona

The number of times each defined persona has converted for each defined conversion.

This metric is provided for each of the default periods.
  • Conversions details screen » Conversions by persona section
  • Personas details screen » Conversions tab
Unique daily conversions ConversionsDaily The number of unique conversions per day for each of the conversions defined in Sitefinity Insight
  • Conversions screen
  • Conversion’s details screen » Unique conversions chart
Conversion statistics per period ConversionsPerPeriod

Provides the following statistics for each defined conversion for all of the default periods.

All statistics in the period are provided for the current and previous periods, as well as for all time:

  • Total conversions
  • Unique conversions
  • Contacts converted
  • New contacts converted
  • Visitors in segment
 Conversions details screen
Lead scoring stages daily statistics LeadsDaily A daily statistic, showing how many contacts and visitors have passed a certain lead scoring stage for a given day Lead Scoring details screen » Threshold passes chart
Daily persona passes PersonasDaily The number of visitors and contacts, which have passed the persona threshold for a given day Personas details screen » Visitors passed persona threshold chart
Persona period statistics PersonasPerPeriod

Provides the following statistics for each defined persona for all of the default periods.

All statistics in the period are provided for the current and previous periods, as well as for all time:

  • Visitors recognized as a given persona
  • Contacts recognized as a given persona
  • Percentage of total visitors recognized as a given persona
 Personas details screen
Touchpoint hits by persona TouchpointHitsByPersona The number of times each defined persona has hit a manually defined touchpoint. This metric is provided for all of the default periods

Personas details screen » Touchpoints tab

Touchpoints details screen » Hits by persona section
Daily touchpoints statistics TouchpointsDaily The number of unique and total hits each defined touchpoint has for a given day Touchpoints details screen » Daily hits chart
Touchpoint period statistics TouchpointsPerPeriod

Provides the following statistics for each defined touchpoint for all of the default periods.

All statistics in the period are provided for the current and previous periods, as well as for all time:

  • Total hits
  • Unique hits
  • Total conversions
  • Visitors converted
  • Contact converted
  • Contact hits
 Touchpoints details screen
Daily data center visitors statistics VisitorsDaily The number of new visitors and contacts in the datacenter for a given day Datacenter dashboard screen
Data center visitors period statistics VisitorsPerPeriod

Provides the following statistics for each data center for all of the default periods.

All statistics in the period are provided for the current and previous periods, as well as for all time and the improvement of the current period compared to the previous one:

  • New contacts
  • Unique active visitors
 Datacenter dashboard screen
Contacts Contacts Contains the complete demographic information about all Contacts in the data centers that are accessible with the provided access key, including all predefined and custom properties. Contacts screen.

NOTE: This table is available only when you have configured Parquet file export.
For more information, see Data export in Parquet format.
Interactions Interactions Contains all the interactions contained in the data centers that are accessible with the provided access key. The Journey part of the Contacts screen.

NOTE: This table is available only when you have configured Parquet file export.
For more information, see Data export in Parquet format.
Not Applicable Mappings You use the information in the Mappings table to create a unified journey for any given contact when the physical person uses multiple devices or browsers. This information is not directly accessible inside the Sitefinity Insight web app.

NOTE: This table is available only when you have configured Parquet file export.
For more information, see Data export in Parquet format.

Information, such as the name of the Conversion, Touchpoint, the period, or the name of the datacenter, are exposed in the following Dimension tables:

Sitefinity Insight Artefact name Power BI connector table Short artefact description Visualized in Sitefinity Insight
Conversions Conversions The conversions defined in Sitefinity Insight Conversions screen
Lead scoring stages Leads All lead scorings stages for each of the lead scoring defined in Sitefinity Insight along with their threshold, the number of visitors and contacts currently in the stage, and the number of visitors that have ever passed the stage
  • Lead Scoring screen
  • Lead Scoring details screen » Visitors per stage charts
Personas Personas The personas, defined in Sitefinity Insight, along with their threshold Personas screen
Touchpoints Touchpoints The touchpoints that you have manually defined in Insight, along with their all-time unique and total hits Touchpoints screen
Data centers Datacenters Your Sitefinity Insight data centers. The Power BI table includes the count of all Insight artefacts in the data center, for example – touchpoint or conversions, as well as the number of visitors reported.
  • Analytics screen
  • Administration » Datacenters screen
Statistics Periods Periods

The predefined periods, for which most artefact statistics in Insight are calculated.

Supported periods are:

  • Yesterday
  • Last 7 days
  • Last 30 days
  • Last 3 months
  • Last 6 months
  • Analytics all and details artefacts screens
  • Analytics » Dashboard screen

All data is refreshed daily in Sitefinity Insight, and there is no need to update your Power BI reports with higher frequency.

Once you choose which ones you want to use, you can see their relations, by using the Modeling view of your Power BI report.

Sample report

To see a sample report in Power BI, click Sitefinity Insight Sample Report.

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