Information is everywhere! The challenge you may face is how to make effective use of it. Every time you use data, you need to know how to access it and how to display it so that it makes sense.


The QuickHelp Admin portal has prebuilt reports that can be downloaded into a CSV and used to create charts within Power BI. However, you might spend hours gathering and formatting this data. And then you need to repeat the same process every week.


What if you could change that?


One way to change it is to use QuickHelp’s APIs to create a connection between QuickHelp data and Power BI to collect this data automatically.


What you will need


The following information will be required when configuring Power BI, so we suggest you note them somewhere easily accessible.


Authorization Key (QuickHelp Admin Portal > Settings) 


Subscription Key (QuickHelp API portal)

For instructions on finding your API keys, please see QuickHelp APIs - Getting Access.


Request URL


To get the Request URL, please follow these steps.

  1. Log in to the QuickHelp API portal
  2. Click the APIS tab
  3. Click v1
  4. Click the desired Endpoint
    • For Power BI you will focus on the “get” endpoints (e.g.: getAssets, getAttendedEvents, getSkillPathAssets, etc.
  5. Copy the Request URL through to the name of the endpoint (e.g. https://qhapi.quickhelp.com/v1/Content/Assets)


Building the API Connection

Please follow these steps to create the connection between QuickHelp and your Power BI.


  1. Launch Power BI Desktop
  2. From the Home tab, click Get Data
  3. Type Web in the Get Data search field
  4. Select Web from the Results
  5. Click Connect
  6. Click the Advanced radio button in the From Web dialog
  7. Paste the Request URL (see above) into URL parts
  8. To filter by additional parameters, click Add part (optional)
    • Parameters are used to apply filters to your data
    • The first parameter will begin with a ‘?’ e.g., ?typeid=1 (Video assets)
    • Each additional part will begin with a ‘&’ e.g., &topicid=962 (Microsoft Teams)
      NOTE: The descriptions for these filters are in the API portal
  9. In the HTTP request header parameters section, type Authorization in the Enter or select a value field
  10. In the corresponding field, enter your Authorization Key (from the QuickHelp Admin Portal)
  11. Click Add header
  12. Type Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key in the second Enter or select a value field
  13. In the corresponding field, enter your Subscription Key (from the QuickHelp API Portal)
    NOTE: While the Power BI wizard states that this is optional, it is not optional for QuickHelp APIs to function.
  14. Click OK
  15. An Untitled Power Query Editor will open
    NOTE: If the data does not display, please check a few things:
    • Wait up to 48 hours after having generated your API Key in the QuickHelp Admin Portal
    • Verify that you are connecting to the API Anonymously (Home tab > Recent sources)
    • If you continue to experience problems, please enter a support ticket for assistance.
  16. From the Transform tab, click To Table
  17. Click OK in the To Table dialog (leave everything as default)
  18. Click the icon to the right of Column1
  19. Uncheck Use original column name as prefix
  20. Click OK
  21. From the Home tab, click Close & Apply


After the query changes have been applied, you are now ready to start building your visuals. For more information, please see Build Visuals Using the QuickHelp Web API. To view this asset, the Power BI Content must be enabled in your QuickHelp library.