Hi,
There are couple of options that we can use and the decision will based on the method that you would like to use. But as a disclaimer, I would like to tell you that it is not a good idea for analysis, because SAP ECC's underlying database will be optimised for transaction processing with many table linkages (OLTP). If you import the data directly to Power BI, the performance will not be optimal. So the first step that we have to do is to convert the OLTP data into an OLAP data model (Star Schema, Snowflake Schema etc..) and then connect Power BI to this OLAP data source.
This OLAP data source can either be SAP BW (with or without BI/BO) or any other databased modelled as OLAP. If you choose not to use SAP BW, and bring the data into a database like SQL Server from ECC to normalise them / optimise for analysis, and then connect Power BI to this database, then we have two options.
Option I: Exporting SAP ECC data to another database.
SAP ECC has a transaction code - "DBCO". Using this, we can configure a connection to an external database and define a connection string for that. We can create as many connections as we want. Then write an ABAP program to create a report in SAP and instead of throughing the output as ALV, the output of the report can be written to this external database using this connection string. You can schedule a background job in SAP to run this report periodically and the output will be available in the external database like SQL server. In this SQL server, you may write queries, normalise them, optimise for reporting, create views etc... and connect Power BI to the tables and views in this database for reporting.
In this case, the data between SAP ECC and Power BI will not be live. It will be as per the frequency of the scheduled background job. Moreoever, the background job might put load on the ECC production client.
Option 2: Using SAP PI (Process Integration)
We can use SAP PI to sync the data in SAP ECC to another database or Power BI dataset. The dataset in Power BI can be used as the source of data for creating reports. In this case, the data from SAP ECC has to be pushed to the Power BI dataset or the external database through REST APIs, JSON etc...
From what I understand, the major difference between these two options is that, in Option 1, the method of data transfer is similar to Pull Method where it is based on a time schedule. Whereas in the 2nd Option, it is more like a Push Method which happens in real-time.
Another major consideration is what kind of SAP licensing you have and the option you choose to use has to be careful as not to violate any licensing terms.
Search Terms: "SAP transaction code : DBCO", "Power BI REST APIs", "SAP Process Integration", "Push data into Power BI dataset using JSON" , "SAP BW Connector for Power BI"
