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I need to automatically extract raw data of a PowerBI visualisation across multiple published reports.

Why not just pull the underlying dataset? Because the visualisations are using anomaly detection features of PowerBI, which include anomaly flags not available in the underlying dataset (basically, the visualisations contain calculated columns that are not included in main PowerBI data model)

Ideally a REST API solution would be best, but dumping CSV files or other more roundabout methods are ok.

So far, the closest functionality I can see is in the Javascript API here - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/javascript/api/overview/powerbi/export-data, which allows a website to communicate with an embedded PowerBI report and pass in and out information. But this doesn't seem to match my implementation needs.

I have also seen this https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/anomaly-detector/tutorials/batch-anomaly-detection-powerbi which is to manually implement anomaly detection via Azure Services rather than the native PowerBI functionality, however this means abandoning the simplicity of the PowerBI anomaly function that is so attractive in the first place.

I have also seen this StackOverflow question here PowerBI Report Export in csv format via Rest API and it mentions using XMLA endpoints, however it doesn't seem like the client applications have the functionality to connect to visualisations - for example I tried DAX Studio and it doesn't seem to have any ability to query the data on a visualisation level.

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1 Answers

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I'm afraid all information on PowerBI says this is not possible. The API only supports PDF, PPTX and PNG options, and as such the integration with Power Automate doesn't do any better.

The StackOverflow question you link has some information on retrieving the Dataset but that's before the anomaly detection has processed the data.

I'm afraid your best bet is to, indeed, use the Azure service. I'd suggest ditching PowerBI and going to an ETL tool like DataFactory or even into the AzureML propositions Microsoft offers. You'll be more flexible than in PowerBI as well since you'll have the full power of Python/R notebooks at your disposal.

Sorry I can't give you a better answer.