Proclaim to PowerBI. Proclaim to Microsoft Fabric. Proclaim Database extracts
We are regularly asked to create Proclaim PowerBI dashboards, reports, and integrate Live Proclaim database data into existing MI suites.
The outdated approach of scheduling CSV exports from Proclaim doesn’t scale to large datasets. Scheduling data exports and imports is problematic, and only ever gives you data as ‘fresh’ as you schedule your egress runs. Proclaim Task Server dies overnight? Your MI report is already out of date.
Proclaim’s MIWH utility is prone to failure, lengthy rebuild delays when changing schema, and doesn’t scale well with large field and user counts.
However, modern data connection techniques give you set-and-forget access to Proclaim data within your symantic models. No need for Proclaim Scheduled Tasks. Import (for a business class scheduled refresh) or DirectQuery (for live metric extraction) are both reliable methods for direct Proclaim database queries.
Proclaim’s EAV case field datastore is at the heart of providing the great flexibility of Database Maintenance to make your own fields / schema, but it comes with the cost of the headache of extracting data in more relational forms, and data often lacks field type integrity.
| Method | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| CSV /Excel | Familar tools, low cost, can include Maths calculated fields | Fragile, inflexible, unreliable scheduler |
| Proclaim MIWH | Relatively ‘fresh’ data. Native SQLServer interface. Relational case+field column output | Lengthy rebuilds, inflexible schema, unreliable scheduler |
| ODBC direct access | Always live data, all the data including non-case data (user, config etc) for DevOps | Maths calculations have to be manually coded. Relational form lost. |
| Proclaim API | Always live data, can return calculated Maths values | Only suited to small datasets/individual case/value |
Proclaim direct database access via ODBC is the starting point for modern BI/MI data egress, but needs a considered implementation and Progress DB configuration to avoid impacting performance of other users and implement appropriate data security.
If you choose ODBC, there are still many methods for consuming and publishing the data, each with their own pitfalls. Data Factory for Microsoft Fabric is just one such method, but other methods allow consolidation of Proclaim connections, Integrated Security/AD/Entra controlled connections to Proclaim data.
We have decades of experience setting up ODBC connections to Proclaim, understanding the quirks of Proclaim database schema, and integrating Proclaim data into SQLServer, SSIS, SSRS, PowerBI, Excel and custom APIs.