Maverick exposes your project data as a live OData feed that Power BI can query directly — no CSV exports, no manual imports. Connect once and refresh on demand to pull the latest tasks, time logs, resources, and expenses into any report. These seven steps cover everything from installing the app to building your first cross-table relationships.

1. Install Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store

Press the Windows key, type Microsoft Store, and open it. Search for Power BI Desktop, select the result published by Microsoft Corporation, and click Get. The Store handles the download and future updates automatically — no administrator rights are required. Power BI Desktop is free; you do not need a paid Power BI Pro license to build and view reports locally.

2. Generate an API Key in Maverick

Open Maverick and find the API Keys button in the ribbon toolbar. Click it to open the API Key Manager, then click Generate New API Key. Give the key a label such as Power BI so you can identify it later, then copy the key value immediately — Maverick will not display it in full again after you close the dialog. Keep the key private; anyone who has it can read your project data through the OData feed.

3. Locate Your CID or On-Premise Server URL

Every OData query URL needs a base address. Which one you use depends on how Maverick is deployed:

  • Cloud (stcloud67.com): Your company identifier — the CID — is a long alphanumeric string assigned when your account was created. Find it in your Maverick account settings or in the URL when you are logged into the cloud site. Every query URL you build will include &cid=YOUR_CID_HERE as a parameter.
  • On-premise: No CID is needed. Your base URL is simply your server's address, such as https://your-server.com/odata/. Omit the cid parameter entirely from every query.

4. Open a Blank Query in Power BI

In Power BI Desktop, click the Home tab. Click the arrow below Get Data to open the dropdown, then select Blank Query. The Power Query editor opens with a default empty query. Maverick's OData feed requires a custom HTTP header for authentication, and the Blank Query approach is the cleanest way to include it — Power BI's built-in OData connector does not support custom headers without additional steps.

5. Open the Advanced Editor and Paste the M Query

In the Power Query editor, click the Home tab and then click Advanced Editor. Select all of the placeholder text in the editor and delete it. Paste one of the ready-made M queries from the Power BI OData Integration guide — start with TimeLogs or Projects. Replace the two placeholders in the query:

  • YOUR_CID_HERE — replace with your actual CID (cloud), or remove the entire &cid=… segment (on-premise).
  • YOUR_API_KEY — replace with the key you generated in Step 2.

Click Done. Power Query contacts the Maverick OData endpoint and fetches the first page of records.

6. Name the Query and Repeat for Each Entity

In the Query Settings pane on the right side of the editor, rename the query from Query1 to the entity name — for example, TimeLogs. Then repeat Steps 4 and 5 for each additional entity set you need: Projects, ProjectTasks, Users, Clients, and so on. Maverick exposes eleven entity sets in total, but most reports only need two or three to start. When all queries are added, click Close & Apply on the Home tab to load the data into Power BI.

7. Define Table Relationships in Model View

With multiple entity tables loaded, switch to the Model view — the icon showing three connected boxes in the left sidebar. Drag the ProjectID field from the TimeLogs table and drop it onto ProjectID in the Projects table. Power BI draws a relationship line and infers the cardinality automatically. Add the joins your reports need:

  • TimeLogs[UserID] → Users[UserID] — hours by employee
  • TimeLogs[ClientID] → Clients[ClientID] — hours by client
  • ProjectTasks[ProjectID] → Projects[ProjectID] — tasks under their project
  • Projects[ClientID] → Clients[ClientID] — projects by client

Once the relationships are in place, switch back to the Report view, drag fields from any table onto the canvas, and build bar charts, tables, or KPI cards from your live Maverick data. Click Home → Refresh at any time to pull the latest records.