How to read GitHub data in Power BI using ODBC

Contents hide

1 Introduction

2 Prerequisites

3 Steps

3.1 Create a GitHub Personal Access Token

3.2 Create a new ODBC DSN using ZappySys JSON Driver

3.3 Configure the Connection and API Settings

3.4 Preview GitHub data in ODBC Driver

3.5 Connect Power BI to GitHub via ODBC

3.6 Query GitHub Data with SQL

3.7 Create Useful Power BI Measures

4 Conclusion

5 Need Help?

Introduction

GitHub is a leading platform for source control, CI/CD workflows, and team collaboration. Many organizations need GitHub data in Power BI to monitor engineering performance, repository health, pull request velocity, and issue resolution trends.

Using ZappySys ODBC Driver for REST APIs, you can connect to GitHub and query GitHub data with SQL, then load it directly into Power BI dashboards without writing custom integration code.

This tutorial shows how to create an ODBC DSN for the GitHub API, preview data, connect Power BI, and build analytics using custom SQL queries.

Prerequisites

A GitHub account with access to target repositories or organisation data.
Power BI Desktop is installed on your machine.
Basic understanding of SQL and Power BI data modelling.
Finally, install the ZappySys ODBC Driver.

Steps

Create a GitHub Personal Access Token

Sign in to your GitHub account.
Go to Settings, then find the Developer settings at the bottom of the page.
Github – Go to Developer settings
Now go to Personal access tokens and create a new token (fine-grained or classic, depending on your security policy).
Select permissions required for your extraction scenario (for example, repository metadata, issues, or pull requests), owner, expiration date and more.
Generate the token and copy it to a secure location.
Github – Generate a new token

Create a new ODBC DSN using ZappySys JSON Driver

Search for ODBC in the Windows Start menu and open ODBC Data Source Administrator.
In the User DSN or System DSN tab, click Add.
Select ZappySys JSON Driver and click Continue.

Configure the Connection and API Settings

Enter the base URL:
https://api.github.com/user
In Connection Type, select HTTP and click Configure.
Select Static Token/API Key as the Credential type.
Paste your GitHub token in the authentication field.
Click OK to save the configuration.
Github – ODBC HTTP Static token connection
Set HTTP Request Method to GET.
Set the following values in the HTTP headers:
1. Accept: application/vnd.github+json
2. X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28
Set JSON Path Filter to extract the object array.
Click Test Connection to verify connectivity, then click OK to save the DSN.
Github – ODBC configuration

Preview GitHub data in ODBC Driver

Go to the Preview tab.
Generate a query, then click Preview Data to confirm that rows are returned.
If no data is returned, verify your organisation name, token scope, and JSON Path Filter.
GitHub – ODBC result

Connect Power BI to GitHub via ODBC

Open Power BI Desktop.
Click Get Data from the Home ribbon.
Click More…, search for ODBC, and click Connect.
Power BI – Get data from ODBC connection
Select your GitHub ODBC DSN from the dropdown list.
Optionally, enter a custom SQL query in Advanced options.
Click OK, then click Load to import data.
GitHub – Power BI select connection
Verify the result and click Load.
GitHub – Power BI load the data
In the Navigator window, select the columns you want to load.
GitHub – Power BI final result

Query GitHub Data with SQL

For advanced analytics, use custom SQL queries in Power BI or the ODBC tool.

Example 1: List Repositories

SELECT 
    id,
    name,
    nameWithOwner,
    isPrivate,
    stargazerCount,
    forkCount,
    updatedAt
FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes

SELECT

id,

name,

nameWithOwner,

isPrivate,

stargazerCount,

forkCount,

updatedAt

FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes

Example 2: Public Repositories Only

SELECT 
    name,
    nameWithOwner,
    stargazerCount,
    forkCount
FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes
WHERE isPrivate = false

SELECT

name,

nameWithOwner,

stargazerCount,

forkCount

FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes

WHERE isPrivate = false

Example 3: Most Starred Repositories

SELECT 
    nameWithOwner,
    stargazerCount,
    forkCount
FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes
ORDER BY stargazerCount DESC

SELECT

nameWithOwner,

stargazerCount,

forkCount

FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes

ORDER BY stargazerCount DESC

Example 4: Recently Updated Repositories

SELECT 
    nameWithOwner,
    updatedAt,
    createdAt
FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes
WHERE updatedAt >= DATEADD(DAY, -30, GETDATE())

SELECT

nameWithOwner,

updatedAt,

createdAt

FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes

WHERE updatedAt >= DATEADD(DAY, -30, GETDATE())

Example 5: Repository Count by Visibility

SELECT 
    CASE WHEN isPrivate = true THEN 'Private' ELSE 'Public' END AS RepoVisibility,
    COUNT(*) AS RepoCount
FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes
GROUP BY CASE WHEN isPrivate = true THEN 'Private' ELSE 'Public' END

SELECT

CASE WHEN isPrivate = true THEN 'Private' ELSE 'Public' END AS RepoVisibility,

COUNT(*) AS RepoCount

FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes

GROUP BY CASE WHEN isPrivate = true THEN 'Private' ELSE 'Public' END

Example 6: Language-Based Distribution

SELECT 
    primaryLanguage_name AS Language,
    COUNT(*) AS RepoCount,
    AVG(stargazerCount) AS AvgStars
FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes
GROUP BY primaryLanguage_name
ORDER BY RepoCount DESC

SELECT

primaryLanguage_name AS Language,

COUNT(*) AS RepoCount,

AVG(stargazerCount) AS AvgStars

FROM data.organization.repositories.nodes

GROUP BY primaryLanguage_name

ORDER BY RepoCount DESC

Create Useful Power BI Measures

Use DAX measures after loading the GitHub dataset:

Total Repositories

TotalRepos = COUNTROWS('nodes')

1	TotalRepos = COUNTROWS('nodes')

Total Stars

TotalStars = SUM('nodes'[stargazerCount])

1	TotalStars = SUM('nodes'[stargazerCount])

Average Forks per Repository

AvgForks = AVERAGE('nodes'[forkCount])

1	AvgForks = AVERAGE('nodes'[forkCount])

Private Repository %

PrivateRepoPct =
DIVIDE(
    CALCULATE(COUNTROWS('nodes'), 'nodes'[isPrivate] = TRUE()),
    COUNTROWS('nodes')
)

PrivateRepoPct =

DIVIDE(

CALCULATE(COUNTROWS('nodes'), 'nodes'[isPrivate] = TRUE()),

COUNTROWS('nodes')

)

Conclusion

Connecting GitHub to Power BI using ZappySys ODBC Driver makes it easy to build engineering analytics without writing custom connector code. With SQL-based access to GitHub API responses, you can monitor repository activity, contribution trends, and governance metrics in one place.

Explore the full capabilities of the Zappysys ODBC Drivers to integrate multiple data sources and build comprehensive Power BI dashboards. By combining GitHub data with other sources, you can create unified views of your operational data.

Need Help?

If you encounter any issues, our support team is here to help:

Live Chat — Use the chat widget (bottom-right corner of this page)
Email — support@zappysys.com
Support Center — Visit the ZappySys Support Portal