Pull data from Kobo to Power BI

Can you tell me if it is possible to pull data from Kobo to Power BI? I have seen some articles which indicate that the URL does not seem to work. Can you advise me on how to do this?

Hi @scherrie,

Have you gone through our support article Pulling your data into PowerBI. It should help you overcome your issue. As a backup i would also advise you to have a look at this support article Pulling your data into Excel Power Query.

In addition, you could also visit to our community post which has some discussions on power BI.

Have a great day!

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I have read the articles and encounter the problem when I put in my user name and password I am being told “we could not authenticate with the credentials provided”. This is my login credential for kobo. What should I do?

My account is created under kobotoolbox.org. not humanitarian response. However, when I follow the instructions

and select the api for toolbox.org then select the api for submissions, the following screen appears:

. When I put in my credentials that is when I am told my credentionals could not be authenticated.

Hi,
The issue is that somewhere during the process you forgot to change kobotoolbox.org as opposed to humanitarian server.

Stephane

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I got it fixed. Thank you. Just for clarification. Now that I have the specific form linked to Power BI, once additional entries are made in Kobo, will the dataset in Power BI be automatically updated?

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So now I have a challenge where the xml value is showing in the data set, but I need the corresponding choices value to show instead in the data set, so that the visualizations can be more informative. How is that achieved?

there must be a database where you have relation of xml values with choices. Use that in the power BI data model. I guess, that should help.

That database would be the xls download export file. See attached.
Testa.xlsx (82.9 KB)

Please note that I linked Kobo to Power BI using Postman (i found an article on the forum here). However, the choices are not populating in Power BI, only the xml values. I would prefer not having to manually download the file, change the headers to english, and then import to Kobo. Is real time not an option?

Hi @scherrie,

Would you mind having a look at the post discussed previously, it should help you solve your issue:

And this discussion should also help you out:

And also this post discussed previously:

Have a great day!

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Dear @scherrie

Try this trick:
When you try to get the data form the web change the link as the following:
https://kc.humanitarianresponse.info/api/v1/data/XXXXXX?format=csv
change it to
https://kc.humanitarianresponse.info/api/v1/data/XXXXXX.xls
As a result, you will get the labels in the headers.

Best,

Yasser

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Thanks for replying Yasser. My challenge is that my account is set up in kobo toolbox.org not humanitarianresponse. As mentioned before I have tried all previous suggestions however when there is a multiple choice question, the xml value is what is showing up instead of the description/choice which was assigned the xml value.

I also note though if I download the xls file from kobo having changed the header to English, the actual choices instead of the xml value shows. I would hope that I would not have to download this file daily and do analytics and then just use power BI for visualization. Once again my form is associated to kobotoolbox.org not humanitarian response.

I look forward to hearing from someone who can help me.

Hi @scherrie
Considering that the form is on Kobotoolbox I suggest you change this to kf.kobotoolbox.org/xxxxx

The challenge with the value labels on multiple response items has been an ongoing issue. To get this to work on my end, I have always ensured that the value label for the multiple responses is kept as the text in the values too. At the moment we do not have a solution but we can keep this open to see if other users have sorted it out.

Stephane

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Kf.kobotoolbox and not kc.kobotoolbox ?

Hi, I followed what you suggested, and had the xml values reflect some of the choices. I replaced the form, then went to power bi. The choices are still not showing. I have highlighted 2 sections in the xls sheet for you to see.

See attached file:
Kobocommunity.xlsx (82.3 KB)

Hi @scherrie,

Would you mind dropping the use of / ( ) and see if it works. Generally these are the characters that are not supported for a variable name. I still see the use of the same in the highlighted section of the document that you shared:

image

Have a great day!

Can they be replaced by _ or ; or ;?

Hi @scherrie,

If it’s a fresh deployment i would say YES.

Have a great day!

Dear All,
I seek your respectful support,
I was able to pull data from kobo toolbox form using URL web, but, unfortunately, the data still displaying as names not labels?!!

Hi @imad1
Welcome to the community forum. Could you please have a look at the topic that has been discussed below and see if it resolves your issue?

Stephane

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Salut,
j’ai connecté mon projet kobo à power bi! Mon projet effectue une collecte de données de façon hebdomadaire. Le problème que je rencontre actuellement est que je n’arrive pas à actualiser les visuels que j’ai créé dans power bi malgré qu’il y a eu de nouveaux ajouts. Je reçois des messages d’échecs suivants: Chargement bloqué par des échecs avec d’autres requêtes; la clé ne correspondait à aucune ligne dans la table.