Connect Power BI to your Outpost data

Power BI reads file-based sources cleanly and refreshes them on a schedule. This guide covers the connection for each Outpost destination, plus how to set up scheduled refresh in the Service.

SharePoint (recommended)

The least friction in production. No gateway, scheduled refresh works in the cloud, access governed by SharePoint permissions.

In Outpost:

1. Open the wizard, select your saved search or dataset
2. Choose SharePoint as the destination
3. Authenticate with your Microsoft 365 account
4. Pick the document library and folder (e.g. /sites/Finance/Shared Documents/Outpost/)
5. Schedule and save

In Power BI Desktop:

1. Home → Get Data → SharePoint folder
2. Enter the site URL, not the folder URL (e.g. https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/Finance)
3. Sign in with Microsoft account → Organizational account
4. In the navigator, click Transform Data
5. Filter the file list to your Outpost file (filter on Folder Path and Name)
6. Click the Binary in the Content column to expand, or use Excel.Workbook([Content]) in a custom column for more control
7. Apply transforms, Close & Apply, then publish to the Service

Scheduled refresh in the Service:

1. Find your dataset, open Settings
2. Under Data source credentials, click Edit credentials
3. Set authentication to OAuth2 and sign in
4. Toggle Scheduled refresh on, set the cadence to run after Outpost delivers
5. Add yourself to Refresh failure notifications

Tips:

• Use the SharePoint folder connector, never “SharePoint files.” The file connector is deprecated and breaks in mysterious ways.
• Filter early in Power Query. If the library has hundreds of files, fetching all of them just to grab one is slow. Apply filename and folder filters as the first steps after the source.
• Schedule Power BI 30 minutes after Outpost delivers. SharePoint indexing can lag a few minutes; don't cut it close.
• Use a service account for the SharePoint connection in production. Personal credentials break the day someone changes role.
• Route refresh failure alerts to a shared mailbox or Teams channel. Personal inbox alerts get ignored.

OneDrive for Business

Similar to SharePoint but scoped to one user. Fine for personal exploration, less ideal for shared production reports.

In Outpost:

1. Choose OneDrive as the destination
2. Authenticate, pick the folder, schedule

In Power BI Desktop:

1. Get Data → OneDrive for Business (or use the SharePoint folder connector pointed at your personal OneDrive site URL)
2. Sign in with your organizational account
3. Navigate to the file, transform, load

Tips:

• Use OneDrive for prototypes, SharePoint for production. When the OneDrive owner leaves, the report dies.
• The OneDrive connector is not the same as OneDrive sync. If you point Power BI at the local synced folder (C:\Users\you\OneDrive\...), the published report won't refresh in the Service because the cloud can't see your laptop. Always use the cloud connector.

Google Drive

Power BI ships no native Google Drive connector. The cleanest path is the Web connector against a public file URL.

In Outpost:

1. Choose Google Drive as the destination
2. Authenticate, pick the folder, schedule

In Power BI Desktop:

1. In Google Drive, right-click the file → Share → Anyone with the link → Viewer
2. Convert the share link to a direct download URL:
   • From: https://drive.google.com/file/d/FILE_ID/view
   • To: https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=FILE_ID
3. Get Data → Web, paste the URL
4. Authenticate as Anonymous
5. Transform and load

Tips:

• “Anyone with the link” is the catch. If the file contains anything sensitive, use SharePoint instead.
• Scheduled refresh in the Service works without a gateway when you use the Web connector with anonymous auth. One of the few cases where the Web connector is the right tool.
• If you need access control on the file, you'll need a gateway and a service account with Drive access. At that point SharePoint is less work.

NetSuite File Cabinet

Simplest destination in Outpost. Power BI needs the file exposed via a URL to read it.

In Outpost:

1. Choose NetSuite File Cabinet as the destination
2. Pick the folder
3. Mark the file Available Without Login if your security policy permits
4. Save the schedule and copy the file URL

In Power BI Desktop:

1. Get Data → Web
2. Paste the File Cabinet URL
3. Authenticate as Anonymous
4. Continue in Power Query

Tips:

• The URL is stable. Outpost overwrites the file each delivery, so the query never needs updating.
• “Available Without Login” is a security decision. Treat the URL like a password.
• For sensitive data, use SharePoint instead. The RESTlet-with-token-auth alternative is real but rarely worth building.

Common pattern

Outpost delivers each saved search to its own SharePoint folder, organized by domain (/Outpost/AR/, /Outpost/AP/, /Outpost/GL/). Each folder feeds one Power BI dataflow, refreshed 30 minutes after Outpost. Reports consume the dataflows, not the raw files, so transforms happen once. A service account owns both the SharePoint connection and the dataset, so nothing breaks when people change roles.