Looking ahead to the next release

[jfretheim]

The original version of the Jamf Pro Power BI connector required Basic auth for Jamf Pro Classic API endpoints. As you may know, this is deprecated and an update to this integration has been a long time coming. I'm pleased to say the new version is ready for testing ahead of release.

Changes

The next release of this Connector will focus on backward compatibility, improving authentication, and enhancing performance. Some highlights include:

• basic auth replaced with username/password-based Jamf Pro API Bearer token auth
• support for Jamf Pro API Client auth (a.k.a., the OAuth2 client_credential grant type)
• transitioned to Jamf Pro API rather than Classic API for the bulk of record retrieval. This enables efficient use of paging and selective use of inventory data sections.

Testing

The new version can be tested ahead of release, both locally in Power BI Desktop and by using powerbi.com by way of a Microsoft's On-Premises Data Gateway (standard mode).

Power BI Desktop

Using the JamfPro.mez file from the develop branch of this repo, follow Microsoft's guide for installing a custom connector:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/desktop-connector-extensibility#custom-connectors

You'll know it is installed correctly if you see "Jamf Pro (Custom)" as the data source name in the Get Data window. If it says "Jamf Pro (Beta)", Power BI Desktop is still using the old version (consult the link above to double-check instructions).

powerbi.com

You can use Microsoft's On-Premises Data Gateway (standard mode) to do this. The basic process is to use Power BI Desktop to create a report, publish it to powerbi.com, configure a connection to your On-Premises Data Gateway, and then execute on-demand or scheduled data refreshes.

If you haven't used one before, we can recommend some documentation:

Description	Link
Overview of the technology	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/service-gateway-onprem
Installation guide for standard mode (note: personal mode does not support custom connectors)	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/data-integration/gateway/service-gateway-install#download-and-install-a-standard-gateway
Tutorial for connecting to a custom connector for performing data refreshes. The example in this tutorial uses a SQL database, but you'll be using the Jamf Pro connection type instead	https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/service-gateway-sql-tutorial

Once configured, if you see "Api Client" and "Username Password" as authentication options on your connection, as well as "On-premises" as the selected type at the top, you know it is correctly loading the new version from your On-Premises Data Gateway. If the only authentication option is "Basic", that means the your Data Gateway is not configured correctly.

Notes and caveats

• the data model is messy. If you've used the original published version of this connector, this is already familiar to you. The model has been maintained (warts and all) to keep compatibility with any existing semantic models/reports/visualizations created over the last 5+ years that the original "beta" version has been in use. In it, you will find...
  • columns of duplicate data (see the FieldsToDuplicate lists in both JamfPro/ComputerMappings.pqm and JamfPro/MobileDeviceMappings.pqm.
  • multiple versions of date/timestamp fields in the form foo, foo_utc, and foo_epoch. foo and foo_utc will be standard ISO8601 formatted date strings, and foo_epoch is an epoch milliseconds format.
  • unnecessary data in some tables (Applications and Extension Attributes, especially for Mobile Devices). Rather than a single ID that could be treated as a foreign key from the main "Mobile Devices" table, it includes a slew of other identifiers like wifi_mac_access and category data like modelDisplay.
  • unmapped legacy columns with null values. Some fields either did not have a natural analog from the Jamf Pro API or did not seem relevant. However, all columns needed to be present for backward compatibility. See the UnmappedFields lists in each of the *Mapping.pqm files mentioned above for detail. Any existing reports/visualizations based on those few fields will need to be adjusted to function correctly.
• while it is compatible with the original published version, it is not compatible with the auth-updates branch some of you may have been working with over the last year. We took that branch as a foundation and reworked the data model and authentication for backward compatibility.

Thanks for reading and we look forward to any feedback!

[jfretheim]

For anyone following along, the update has been included in the latest release of Power BI Desktop (version 2.138.782.0 published 11/11/2024), but support on powerbi.com is not yet available in all regions.

This means you can use the new version with either API Client or Username Password authentication locally on Power BI Desktop, but will not be able to perform on-demand or scheduled refreshes from powerbi.com.

Download the latest version from Microsoft here: Download Center - Microsoft Power BI Desktop. I'll post an update when I can confirm the cloud rollout is complete.