Integrating Power BI with ServiceNow for live ticket analysis requires setting up a pipeline that supports frequent data updates and secure access to ServiceNow's incident, request, and SLA data. Power BI does not have a native ServiceNow connector, but it can connect through REST APIs, OData endpoints, or third-party connectors that expose ServiceNow data in a format Power BI can consume.
The most common and flexible method is using ServiceNow's REST API to pull data into Power BI. You can either create custom queries using Power Query's Web.Contents function or use a custom connector to securely authenticate via OAuth 2.0 and fetch data on a scheduled or near-real-time basis. For large datasets, it's recommended to filter and page API responses to manage load and avoid throttling. Alternatively, OData feeds provided by the ServiceNow OData plugin can simplify integration, though they may have performance limitations and require proper configuration on the ServiceNow side.
For near real-time updates, consider using Power BI Dataflows or Azure Data Factory to automate data extraction at regular intervals and write to a staging layer like Azure SQL or Data Lake. This allows you to decouple the data extraction logic from the reporting layer, enhancing scalability and performance. Always secure API calls with credentials stored in Azure Key Vault or Power BI's gateway, and limit data access using ServiceNow's role-based access controls (RBAC).
