Better reporting with help of Microsoft PowerBI or Tableau

[xavier_dumont2]

Microsoft PowerBi is part of Office 365 Subscription.

This product allows to create reports on almost all kind of solutions and is a central point for companies who need a 360° view of the activity.

You could connect in those BI tools: ERP, CRM, PLM, Cloud services, etc. But..... not PDM Autodesk Vault.

Why? Because there is no solution to query live the Vault Database (the Vault API is not a solution in this case).

• SQL queries are prohibited by Autodesk rules: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideas/allow-sql-select-query-on-vault-database/idi-p/9205104 
• There is no REST-API: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideas/rest-web-services/idi-p/9638516 

This is a great opportunity to replace heavy RDLC report available in Vault.

Thanks in advance.

[xavier_dumont2]

Hello,

For BI, it will be useful to query directly Vault Database with a SELECT Query. Unfortunately, Autodesk don't allow any access on database even if a SELECT perform absolutely no change on the database.

Please allow us to make this kind of query (without any support to help creating the query itself, it's OK).

Or propose any other "direct" access (REST API, webservices, etc).

[martina_edelmann]

We want to be able to easily use the various information from Vault in other programs (read-only) without the user having to switch to Vault.
We found out that there is no possibility for REST Web Services.
We would welcome this option for future versions.

[olegd.prod]

Hello there,
As you may know, we already have WCF/SOAP web services. What's driving your need for REST specifically?

[martina_edelmann]

Yes, I know.

We would like to use Vault results in WEBCON. And yes I know that WEBCON can do SOAP.
We have now asked developers for a low-cost customization. We have been informed that an customization via SOAP is a bit more complex.
We just want to query which files (by file extension) contain a certain property and display this result as a list in WEBCON. For little money.

[olegd.prod]

As you found out, we don't have REST services today, so you'll have to use SOAP for now.
We are thinking about REST services. It will be interesting to see if other users upvote this idea.
Keep in mind that it took years to build up the SOAP services, so REST would not be a 1:1 match to SOAP on day one

[xavier_dumont2]

Hello, you talk about SOAP/WCF.
Our customers (I'm working for an Autodesk Reseller) want to query the Vault through PowerBI and try to find solution to achieve this.

But when I'm looking for SOAP/WCF to PowerBi I get this kind of article:

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/How-to-get-data-from-a-SOAP-WS-with-Power-BI/td-p/29040

Does SOAP/WCF is really an old technology?

Do you think, it's possible to use this kind of request with Vault?
https://zappysys.com/blog/call-soap-api-power-bi-read-xml-web-service-data

Thanks in advance.

[xavier_dumont2]

Another related idea: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideas/rest-web-services/idc-p/9938452#M10170

[xavier_dumont2]

Another related idea: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/vault-ideas/allow-sql-select-query-on-vault-database/idc-p/9938459#M1...

[ihayesjr]

@xavier_dumont2 

While I know this isn't exactly what you are looking for, take a look at this AU class.

Dashboard, Smashboard—Vault Reporting on Steroids | Autodesk University

[xavier_dumont2]

@ihayesjr 

Thanks for this information. I founded it before creating this idea but this workaround has some disadvantages. But this could help in some circumstance if none-live data is enough I'm agree with you.

The disadvantages with this workaround are:

- You must use Vault Reports and schedule a job with a third party tools (development with Vault API) to run the search and export result. I think there is a limitation of size? Some of our customers manage more than 1M of files / items.

- You can query Files / Items / ECO and Custom Object. But you can't query BOMrow for example.

- It's not live, as you explain. And this cause some problem for people who want to use BI for data integrity check between ERP and PDM for example. In this case SQL queries or RESTAPI will cover this kind of need (I think).

[carceneauxFWHRG]

Vault has a wealth of information that the database contains that is 'difficult' to access for reporting. A simple select  SQL query would be very helpful.  In this scenario, I had to build a custom add in to basically export the data I wanted (time files spent in lifecycle, change order data, BOM information, etc.) I'm very much looking forward to what Autodesk comes up with. 

[mvigneau]

Hello,

why "SQL queries are prohibited by Autodesk rules" ?

[ihayesjr]

Implemented in Vault 2025.2 Update

[xavier_dumont2]

A huge thanks for this 🙂 Now it's time to query Vault Data API 😉