How to Connect Kobo to Power BI

Transforming raw field data from KoboToolbox into actionable insights often feels like a multi-step, manual chore. This article walks you through connecting your KoboToolbox projects directly to Microsoft Power BI, helping you create automated, interactive dashboards that bring your data to life.

Why Connect KoboToolbox to Power BI?

KoboToolbox is an incredible tool for field data collection, used extensively in humanitarian, research, and development sectors. The data it collects, however, often ends up exported into static spreadsheets. While functional, this process is repetitive and makes real-time analysis difficult. Sending out an updated report means re-downloading a CSV, cleaning it up, and updating your charts all over again.

Connecting Kobo directly to Power BI solves this. It establishes a live link between your data collection forms and your analysis canvas. This connection allows you to:

Automate Your Reporting: Set up your dashboard once and simply hit "Refresh" in Power BI to pull in the latest submissions. No more manual downloads.
Create Interactive Visualizations: Move beyond static tables and build dynamic maps, charts, and graphs that allow you and your stakeholders to filter and explore the data themselves.
Monitor Projects in Real-Time: Get an up-to-the-minute view of data coming in from the field, which is invaluable for progress monitoring and quality checks.
Perform Deeper Analysis: Use Power BI's powerful DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) and data modeling features to find trends and correlations that are difficult to spot in a simple spreadsheet.

The key to this connection lies in the KoboToolbox API.

Understanding the Connection Method: The Kobo API

An API (Application Programming Interface) is essentially a messenger that allows different software applications to talk to each other. Instead of you manually downloading data from Kobo and uploading it to Power BI, the Kobo API allows Power BI to directly request and receive that data automatically.

We'll be using Power BI's "Get Data from Web" feature to connect to a specific URL provided by the Kobo API. This URL points directly to your project's dataset. Once Power BI connects, it will download the data in a format called JSON, which we will then clean and structure within Power BI itself. Don't worry if that sounds technical, we'll walk through it step-by-step.

Prerequisites: What You’ll Need

Before anything else, make sure you have the following ready to go:

A KoboToolbox account with at least one active project that has collected some data.
Power BI Desktop installed on your computer. It's a free application you can download directly from Microsoft.
Your KoboToolbox username and password for authentication.

Step-by-Step Guide to Connecting Kobo to Power BI

Let's get right into the process. Follow these steps carefully to establish the connection.

Step 1: Get Your KoboToolbox API URL

First, you need the unique URL that points to your project's data. This tells Power BI exactly where to go to get the data.

Log in to your KoboToolbox account and open the project you want to connect to.
Go to the DATA tab for that project.
On the left menu, click on Downloads.
Here, you'll see a section for exporting your data. In the "Advanced Options" section, find the option to export your data to a .XLS file. Copy the link address by right-clicking on it and saving the address. This manual export is to discover your project's unique ID.
Paste this link into a text editor like Notepad or TextEdit. You'll only need one part of it.
Search through the URL for your form's unique identifier (UID). It's a string of letters and numbers right after .../assets/ and before the next slash. For example: https://kf.kobotoolbox.org/#/forms/aBCd12eFgHi3jKlMnoPqrS/data/downloads. Here, aBCd12eFgHi3jKlMnoPqrS is the UID.
Now, construct your final API URL. The format is:https://[your_server]/api/v2/assets/[your_form_uid]/data.json

You'll need to replace the placeholders:

[your_server]: This is either kf.kobotoolbox.org (for the global server) or eu.kobotoolbox.org (for the European Union server). Use whichever one your account is on.
[your_form_uid]: The unique ID you just found.

So, the final API URL would look something like this:

https://kf.kobotoolbox.org/api/v2/assets/aBCd12eFgHi3jKlMnoPqrS/data.json

Keep this URL handy. This is your key.

Step 2: Open Power BI and Use "Get Data from Web"

With your API URL ready, it's time to fire up Power BI.

Open a new Power BI Desktop file.
In the Home ribbon at the top, click on Get Data and select Web from the dropdown menu.
A dialog box will appear asking for a URL. Paste your Kobo API URL into the box and click OK.

Step 3: Authenticate Your Kobo Account

Power BI now needs permission to access your Kobo data. The "Access Web content" window will appear.

On the left side of the window, select Basic.
Enter your KoboToolbox Username and Password in the fields provided.
For the "Select which level to apply these settings to" dropdown, you can generally select the top-level URL to save the credentials for future use with other forms on your account.
Click Connect.

Power BI will now connect to the Kobo server and download the data. If successful, you'll be taken to the Power Query Editor.

Step 4: Transform Your Data in Power Query

This is the most crucial step. The data Power BI gets from the API is nested JSON, not a clean table. It needs some restructuring, and Power Query is the perfect tool for the job.

When the query loads, it might not look right at first. You'll likely see something that says a "list" of "records" in a single large element.

Convert the List into a Table

Your data will appear likely as a "results" section from your API call, with a list under. Click on “list” in this preview to load a separate query. This is necessary for applying transformations, so if you encounter errors, an additional conversion step may be needed.
In the top toolbar of Power Query Editor, under the Transform tab, click Into Table. Accept the default settings by clicking OK. You’ll be ready for further transformations once this is done.

Expand the Data Records

You now have a table with one column, likely named "Column1", and each row says "Record". This means all your data fields (survey questions) are nested inside these records. We need to expand them.

Look at the header for "Column1". You'll see an icon with two arrows pointing in opposite directions (the expand icon). Click this icon.
A dialog box will pop up, listing all the fields (your Kobo form questions) available within the records.
By default, all fields will be selected. You can uncheck any system-generated fields you don't need, like _id, _uuid, or _submission_time (unless you do).
Important: Uncheck the box that says "Use original column name as prefix". If you leave this checked, every column name will be long and start with "Column1."
Click OK.

Voila! Your nested data has now been expanded into a flat, familiar table structure with columns for each of your survey questions.

Step 5: Clean Up and Refine

The final step is to clean up your new table.

Rename Columns: The column headers will be the question IDs from your Kobo form (e.g., group_profile/user_name). Rename them to be more descriptive (e.g., "User Name").
Check Data Types: Power BI tries to guess the data type for each column, but it might get it wrong. Click the icon on a column header (e.g., "ABC" for text, "1.2" for decimal number) to change the data type to Whole Number, Date/Time, True/False, etc., as needed. This is critical for calculations and accurate visuals.
Handle "Select Multiple" Questions: Questions where the user can select multiple answers often appear as a single text string with options separated by spaces (e.g., "source_one source_three"). In the Home tab, you can use the Split Column feature to separate these into distinct columns or rows for better analysis.

Step 6: Load Your Data into Power BI

Once you're happy with how the table looks in Power Query Editor, click the Close & Apply button in the top-left corner.

Power BI will save your transformation steps and load the clean data into its data model. You can now start building charts, maps, and tables in the Power BI Report view just like you would with any other data source! Whenever you want to see the latest data, simply click the Refresh button on the Home tab. Power BI will redo all your transformation steps on the new data automatically.

Final Thoughts

Connecting KoboToolbox to Power BI turns your data collection platform into a dynamic and automated analytics powerhouse. By using the Kobo API link with Power BI's Web connector and Power Query Editor, you can eliminate manual CSV downloads and create refreshable dashboards that give you and your team a real-time pulse of your activities.

While this direct API connection is a huge leap forward, setting it up in Power BI and navigating the Power Query transformations still requires a bit of a learning curve. That’s why we built Graphed - to make connecting and analyzing your data dead simple. We've automated the entire reporting process so you can connect data sources in a few clicks and build entire dashboards in seconds just by asking for what you want to see in plain English. No wrestling with nested JSON or complex query editors required.