Skip to main content
This use case walks through importing Syteca monitoring data into Microsoft Power BI report templates using the Syteca API Data Connector. The result is a set of Power BI dashboards covering idle time, work time, user productivity, interactive monitoring, and application usage — driven by live API calls into the Data Connector.
NOT AVAILABLE IN SAAS. The Data Connector is on-premises only.

Before you start

Import Syteca data into a Power BI report template

1

Open the report template in Power BI Desktop

Open the required Syteca Power BI report template (.pbit or .pbix file) in Power BI Desktop.
2

Copy the API key from the Management Tool

Open the Syteca Management Tool. Click the button in the top right where your user name is displayed.On the Manage Account page, click the Copy icon next to the Active API Key field to copy the key to your clipboard.
Treat the API key like a password — anyone with it can read every monitoring record visible to your user account. Don’t paste it into shared chats or commit it to source control.
3

Open Edit Parameters in Power BI

In the Power BI report template, click Transform data → Edit parameters to open the Edit Parameters dialog.
4

Set the ApiKey and ApiUrl

  • ApiKey — paste the value you copied from the Management Tool.
  • ApiUrl — set to the Data Connector URL in the form https://<hostname>/ekranapi (where <hostname> matches the Issued To field of the HTTPS certificate you set up during installation).
Include the /ekranapi path suffix — without it, Power BI calls will return 404.
5

(Optional) Set the time range

Change the From and To fields if you want to constrain the date range. These parameters drive the User Productivity dataset specifically — other datasets in the template may use their own ranges.
6

Apply changes

Click OK in the Edit Parameters dialog, then click Apply changes in the Power BI ribbon. Power BI calls each endpoint in turn and loads the data into the report’s tables.Wait until all data is imported — large date ranges or busy Syteca deployments may take a few minutes. The report visuals populate automatically once data load completes.
Power BI Desktop Edit Parameters dialog showing ApiKey, ApiUrl, From, and To fields for the Syteca Data Connector report template

The Edit Parameters dialog in Power BI Desktop — set the ApiKey from the Management Tool and ApiUrl pointing to your Data Connector hostname.

Example reports

Power BI templates from Syteca typically include the following reports:

Idle Time and Work Time

Power BI report showing per-user idle time vs work time breakdown with stacked bars across multiple users

Idle Time and Work Time — per-user breakdown of productive vs idle hours, sourced from POST /sessions and the productivity time field.

Endpoints used: POST /sessions (for duration, idleTime, productivityTime per session).

Interactive Monitoring

A timeline-style view of user activity events, blended with alert events for context. Useful for incident review where you need to see “what was this user doing when the alert fired?” Endpoints used: POST /sessions + GET /alerts.

User Productivity

Power BI heatmap showing user productivity across hours of the day with color intensity representing active time

User Productivity — heatmap of active minutes per user across hours of the day, sourced from GET /user/getproductivity.

Endpoints used: GET /user/getproductivity (for the (userName, timeOfDay, totalMinutes) triples).

Application Usage

Power BI report showing top applications ranked by total time spent across all monitored users with date and user filters

Application Usage — top applications by total time, sourced from GET /statistics/getapp.

Endpoints used: GET /statistics/getapp (and optionally GET /statistics/geturl for a URL-equivalent report).

Building your own Power BI reports

The reports above are starting templates — you can build any Power BI visualization that fits the API’s data shape: In Power BI, use Get data → Web with the ApiUrl and the ApiKey header — Power BI handles the JSON parsing automatically, exposing the response fields as Power Query columns.

Refreshing the data

Power BI reports built on the Data Connector follow Power BI’s standard refresh model:
  • Manual refresh in Desktop: click Refresh in the Home ribbon to re-call every endpoint and update visuals.
  • Scheduled refresh in the Power BI service: publish the report to Power BI service and configure a scheduled refresh. The Data Connector must be reachable from the Power BI service host — for on-premises deployments, that typically means an On-premises data gateway between Power BI service and your network.

Fix an SSL/TLS certificate error

NOT AVAILABLE IN SAAS.
If Power BI shows an SSL/TLS certificate error when connecting to the Data Connector, check the following:
1

Use the certificate's hostname, not an IP address

In the Power BI report template, click Transform data > Edit parameters. If ApiUrl uses the machine’s IP address, replace it with its hostname instead, for example https://<hostname>/ekranapi.
The hostname in ApiUrl must exactly match the Issued To name on the HTTPS certificate — not any other valid hostname for the machine.
2

Confirm the certificate is trusted

Confirm the Management Tool machine has a valid SSL certificate, and that the same certificate is added to the Trusted Root Certificate store on the machine running Power BI Desktop.
3

Adjust Power BI's security and privacy settings

In Power BI Desktop, go to File > Options and settings > Options:
  • Security page — set Certificate Revocation to None, and Data Extensions to Allow any extension to load without validation or warning.
  • Privacy page — set Privacy Levels to Always ignore Privacy Level settings.

API reference

Authentication, base URL, time conventions, all endpoints, status codes.

Install the Data Connector

Prerequisites and MSI install before you can connect Power BI.

Manage the Data Connector

Get your API key from the Manage Account page.

Overview

Conceptual overview of the Data Connector and its use cases.