Data scraping from published Power BI visual

Question

How to import data in any programming way from published specific Power BI visual to another PBI report or SQL Server table or just scrap it to local drive? I would like to achieve the same effect as by clicking on three dots ... in the right upper corner of published PBI visual > export data > Save as to local drive.

This gets me the whole table of data I need without looking at the complexity how the visual was produced by someone else (i.e. joining many tables on unknown keys). Whatever the pros and cons, I want to get data from the external report of PBI visual, not from Power BI datasets nor from any other primery source of external report.

Ideally, I would like to plug to the visual of external report as a source in my Power BI report. If that is not possible, would there be any way using R to open the PBI external report, and export data from specific visual to R data.frame? If not, maybe it could be done in Python or any other program designed for data scraping?

Answer 1

I would try the exportData method from the JavaScript library for embedding Power BI:

https://github.com/microsoft/PowerBI-JavaScript/wiki/Export-Data

Your screenshot implies that you are accessing the report through the Power BI web service app.powerbi.com. Once you have opened the report using that portal, the menu option Share / Embed report / Website or portal will give you the secure token you need to get started.