Can I share my RE/NXT API (that works under Power BI) with my other colleagues (who use Power BI)?

Mal Colley

Case Central have advised me that “the SKY API connection to Power BI is tied to my Blackbaud credentials. Individuals would need to set up their own connections using their own credentials in order to also interface SKY API as a SKY Developer.”

Is the “Assign Team” option either a solution or a workaround (as in adding those other colleagues as developers, unless “Team credentials” are a thing), or is this just not possible? In which case, I'll help my colleagues to build their own connectors with their own credentials.

Grateful to anyone who can confirm either yes or no to if I can share or not

Alex Wong

@Mal Colley
there may be some misunderstanding here.

if you are using the Power BI custom connector to build reports, you can publish these reports to Power BI service (thereby allowing the reports to directly show up in RE NXT using SKY Add-in), you do need to setup a Gateway if that's the route you take. (or you can use this method that I have a template for: https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/586/71846

Once you publish the report, anyone with Power BI Pro license will be able to see it, they do not need to have developer account. everytime the report refresh, it will use your credentials.

Mal Colley

@Alex Wong Thanks for your link, that would have been a question that I'd have asked in about a month or two

Yes, there was a misunderstanding on my part - I should have been clearer and said “Power BI Connector” (as in the .MEZ file that one needs to make to use the SKY API), where it seems that each user has their own developer keys from which to make their own MEZ file.

Rebecca Sundquist

@Mal Colley, if you share your .mez file with other users to save to their local drives, then they will have the ability to unpack your subscription key. It would be a better practice to have those users subscribe as SKY Developers and create their own .mez files using their SKY developer subscriptions.

When it comes to publishing a Power BI report and semantic model using the connector, Alex mentioned the necessity of the data gateway. The gateway is the machine where your IT admin would need to save the custom connector's .mez file, perhaps the one using your own subscription key. There are instructions at GitHub - blackbaud/powerbi-connector: Blackbaud data connectors for Power Query and Power BI with details about saving this file under the gateway user's Documents file path. Typically the default gateway user is NT SERVICE\\PBIEgwService and the path would be under that user's \\Documents\\Power BI Desktop\\Custom Connectors.

I hope this sheds some light on how the custom connector works as a local file to authenticate Power BI's access to SKY API.

Mal Colley

@Rebecca Sundquist thank you for the link and explaining the risks with sharing my developer keys. Our other CRM doesn't have that, it's one API URL for everyone.

I'm new to using the SKY API and still trying to get my head around how best we (my colleagues and I) can use it, in terms of enhancing the native NXT dashboard reporting. Very grateful to both you and @Alex Wong