Ravindra BagaleCourses & study guides मराठी Track your progress

5. Web Data, APIs and Google Sheets

5.1 The Web Connector

By Last updated:

Start with a problem

Amir's team publishes a CSV at a web address every morning. He wants Power BI to read it directly, without downloading it each day.

Explain simply

Get data › Web reads a file or page from a URL. For a CSV URL, Power BI shows the table preview; for an HTML page it lists the tables found.

Show the data

Order ID Order Date City Store Platform Category Amount (₹) Delivery mins Status
301 06-Apr-2026 Pune Kothrud Blinkit Dairy 400 8 Delivered
302 06-Apr-2026 Pune Baner Amazon Now Snacks 200 12 Delivered
303 07-Apr-2026 Nashik Gangapur Blinkit Dairy 300 14 Delivered
304 04-May-2026 Nashik College Road Blinkit Fruits 150 9 Delivered
305 04-May-2026 Kolhapur Rajarampuri Amazon Now Snacks 450 7 Delivered
306 05-May-2026 Pune Kothrud Blinkit Fruits 250 16 Delivered
307 05-May-2026 Nashik College Road Amazon Now Dairy 350 11 Delivered
308 05-May-2026 Kolhapur Rajarampuri Blinkit Dairy 0 Cancelled

About this data: This table uses columns: Order ID, Order Date, City, Store, Platform, Category, Amount (₹), Delivery mins, Status. This table uses columns: Check, Value. This table uses columns: Mode, Use it for, Fields. Values shown are the lesson examples already on this page (not a new dataset).

Fictional sample data. Practice file: visuals_orders_apr_may_2026.csv (source: src/practice/).

Demonstrate

  1. On this course site, right-click the practice file link below › Copy link address.
  2. Desktop › Get data › Web.
  3. Choose Basic, paste the URL › OK.
  4. Choose Anonymous access for a public file › Connect.
  5. Transform data; check 8 rows.

Show the result

Your result should look like this (fictional sample):

Check Value
Rows 8
Total Amount ₹2,100

Explain what happened

The Web connector downloaded the file at refresh time and parsed it as CSV.

Explore further

  • Company URLs often need Organizational account authentication.

Detailed reference for this lesson:

Home › Get data › Web opens the From Web dialog. It has two modes:

Mode Use it for Fields
Basic A single full URL URL
Advanced URLs built from parts, extra HTTP headers, timeouts URL parts (add several parts that are joined), Command timeout in minutes, HTTP request header parameters (e.g. Accept: application/json)

The same connector can read:

  • HTML pages → tables detected on the page
  • Files at a URL → CSV, Excel, JSON, XML (for example a published Google Sheet CSV, 5.6)
  • REST APIs → JSON responses (5.4)

Ravindra Bagale's Tip

A common mistake is building a URL with the parameter value glued into the base address. It works in Desktop but can block Service refresh. Keep a static base URL and put the changing parts in the RelativePath and Query options of Web.Contents. Never forget this.

Fix common mistakes

Wrong result Reason Correction
HTML instead of data Copied a page link, not the file Copy the direct file link
Access denied Wrong authentication Choose correct method in Data source settings
Refresh fails in Service Dynamic URL Use RelativePath (5.3)

Practise independently

Practice task

After loading from Web, what is Pune's total?

Hints
  • 301, 302, 306.
Solution

₹850.

Think like a professional

Check terms of use before reading any website data.

Ravi Sir's Cards for this lesson

The Web connector. Some useful data is only on websites. Copy-paste breaks every time the page changes.Revision card

मराठी cards