Connecting Power BI to K-12 Student/ Academic Data - Best Practices

Brian Jarvis

Looking for best practices/ user examples to connect Power BI to our cloud-based BB student data. Have heard building Advanced List is viable, but seems to add a middle layer and increase transforming time - most interested in going directly to the data tables in the BB cloud. Anyone have experience in developing that PBI connector for cloud-based school data?

Tracy Brown

@Brian Jarvis Did you ever find or develop an answer to this question?

Brian Jarvis

@Tracy Brown
Hi, Tracy,

After much discussion, we landed on pursuing a custom connector created by Matt Clemmens to pull student data through API using Advanced Lists.

Brian

Suzan Moffett

@Tracy Brown We also work with Matt Clemmons for our solution – he is fantastic and very knowledgeable about Blackbaud so knows how to get the data out. It's our 4th year now!

Jim Maier

@Brian Jarvis Hi Brian, I use Power BI with BB K-12 daily. I have created a large number of reports to assist with visual data comprehension and also as a tool for data cleaning. Feel free to write me if you have any questions or need assistance.

Sandra Ross

@Jim Maier Hi Jim, have you had success creating any reports showing 3-5 previous years along with your current year data? I can show the entire year but not year to date for each of the previous years.

Jim Maier

@Sandra Ross Hi Sandra, are you looking for something like this? Video of historical attendance counts

Sandra Ross

@Jim Maier Yes, that is it exactly! So, I must admit, I had not tried using the filters for month/day but that is what I'll try next. Thanks for sharing!

Jim Maier

@Sandra Ross you are welcome. Feel free to write if you have any other questions.

Bryna Gleich

BTW, for information about the API, see

(mentioning the link in case anyone joins the discussion who is new to the APIs).