Load an OData feed into your Azure data warehouse and Power BI
Unlock OData feeds
If your system offers an OData feed, Yres needs little from you: an OData service announces its own entities and fields. You enter the service root and choose the sign-in: anonymous or Basic, or OAuth 2.0 through the separate OData OAuth variant. Yres reads the metadata, fetches the records and follows the nextLink until the last page. The data lands in an Azure SQL database in your own Azure tenant, gets history there (SCD2) and is usable in Power BI.
At a glance
- Connection
- Generic OData connector for version 2 and 4 feeds. You only enter the service root (often ending in /odata)
- Sign-in without OAuth
- Anonymous for a public feed, or Basic with username and password. Extra HTTP headers are possible, for example Authorization, APIKey or X-API-KEY
- Sign-in with OAuth 2.0
- Through the OData OAuth source type: client credentials (server to server), or authorization code with a refresh token that Yres uses to obtain a fresh access token each time
- Paging
- Fixed: Yres follows the OData nextLink in the response until every page is in. There are no parameters to configure
- Incremental loading
- Possible when the feed contains a suitable change column. Otherwise you load the full set
- Where it runs
- As Azure Data Factory pipelines in your own Azure tenant. If the feed is on-premises or behind a firewall, you select a self-hosted integration runtime
- Secrets
- Service URL, password and client secret are placed in the Key Vault of your own Azure environment, not in the Yres web application
What you arrange yourself
- 1Ask the provider of the system for the service root of the OData feed. Append /$metadata to see which entities and fields the feed has.
- 2Find out how the feed is secured: public, Basic, an API key in a header, or OAuth 2.0.
- 3For OAuth 2.0: register an OAuth client with the provider. You receive a client ID, a client secret, the token endpoint and the permitted scope. If you use authorization code, also obtain a valid refresh token.
- 4Add the OData source in Yres, or OData OAuth for an OAuth-secured feed, and enter the details.
- 5Choose what to load and set the load type and schedule per table.
When you need this — and when you don't
A standalone connector is enough if…
Power BI has an OData connector of its own. If you read one small feed for one report and never need to look back in time, that is sufficient.
Yres adds value if…
Yres earns its place with feeds that span many pages, with OAuth tokens that must be renewed continually, when you want to keep changes the feed itself does not show, or when the OData data has to be combined with sources that do not speak OData.
Frequently asked questions: OData
What is the difference between the Yres OData and REST connectors?
OData is a standard on top of REST. The feed publishes its own data model through $metadata and hands over the link to the next page with every response. That is why paging and structure are already fixed in Yres. With a plain REST API you have to specify the endpoint, the pagination style and the parameter names yourself, and Yres derives the columns from the JSON. If your system has an OData feed, that is the shortest route.
How do I know whether my system has an OData feed?
Check the vendor's API documentation or ask. A service root often ends in /odata, and appending /$metadata shows the data model. If your system is not in our source list but does offer OData, you can connect it this way. Well-known sources such as SAP services, Mendix and Topdesk also run over OData in Yres.
My feed requires an API key or OAuth. Is that possible?
Yes. An API key is sent as an extra HTTP header with the regular OData source type. For OAuth 2.0 you choose the OData OAuth source type, with client credentials or authorization code. With authorization code a refresh token is mandatory; without it Yres rejects the source.
When do I need a self-hosted integration runtime for OData?
Only when the OData service cannot be reached directly from Azure, for instance because it runs on-premises or behind a firewall. For a feed that is reachable over the internet, the standard cloud runtime of Azure Data Factory is enough.
Full technical description in the knowledge base →·Last reviewed:
Data warehouse automation that runs in your own Azure
Built for organisations on Azure and Power BI. Yres connects your sources, keeps the history and promotes changes in a controlled way, without manual work.