Connect to LinkedIn Sales Navigator in Power BI Desktop

In Power BI Desktop, you can connect to LinkedIn Sales Navigator to help find and build relationships just like any other data source in Power BI Desktop, and create ready-made reports about your progress.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Usage tab

To connect to LinkedIn data using the LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you need to have a LinkedIn Sales Navigator Enterprise plan, and either be an Admin or Reporting User on the Sales Navigator Contract.

The following video provides a quick tour and tutorial for using the LinkedIn Sales Navigator template app, which is described in detail later in this article.

Note

This video might use earlier versions of Power BI Desktop or the Power BI service.

Connect to LinkedIn Sales Navigator

To connect to LinkedIn Sales Navigator data, select Get Data from the Home ribbon in Power BI Desktop. Select Online Services from the categories on the left, then scroll until you see LinkedIn Sales Navigator (Beta).

Get Data in Power BI Desktop

You'll be advised that you're connecting to a third-party connecter that's still under development.

Third-party warning

When you select Continue, you're prompted to specify which data you want.

Prompt for which information to provide

In the LinkedIn Sales Navigator window that appears, select which data you want to return, either All contacts or Selected contacts from the first drop-down selector. You can then specify the start and end dates to constrain the data it receives to a particular time window.

Once you've provided the information, Power BI Desktop connects to the data associated with your LinkedIn Sales Navigator contract. Use the same email address you use to sign in to LinkedIn Sales Navigator through the website.

Sign in to LinkedIn

When you connect successfully, you're prompted to select which data from your LinkedIn Sales Navigator contract from a Navigator window.

Select data with Navigator

You can create whatever reports you like with your LinkedIn Sales Navigator data. To make things easier, there is also a LinkedIn Sales Navigator .PBIX file that you can download, that has sample data already provided, so you can get familiar with the data and the reports, without having to start from scratch.

You can download the PBIX file from the following location:

In addition to the PBIX file, the LinkedIn Sales Navigator also has a template app that you can download and use, too. The next section describes the template app in detail.

Using the LinkedIn Sales Navigator template app

To make using the LinkedIn Sales Navigator as easy as possible, you can use the template app that automatically creates a ready-made report from your LinkedIn Sales Navigator data.

Template app for LinkedIn Sales Navigator

When you download the app, you can select whether to connect to your data, or explore the app with sample data. You can always go back and connect to your own LinkedIn Sales Navigator data after you explore the sample data.

Connect to data for LinkedIn Sales Navigator

You can get the LinkedIn Sales Navigator template app from the following link:

The template app provides four tabs to help analyze and share your information:

  • Usage
  • Search
  • InMail
  • SSI

The Usage tab shows your overall LinkedIn Sales Navigator data.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Usage tab shows your overall LinkedIn Sales Navigator data.

The Search tab lets you drill deeper into your search results:

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Search tab

The InMail provides insights into your InMail usage, including number of InMails sent, acceptance rates, and other useful information:

LinkedIn Sales Navigator InMail tab

The SSI tab provides additional details into your social selling index (SSI):

LinkedIn Sales Navigator SSI tab

To go from the sample data to your own data, select edit app in the top-right corner (the pencil icon) and then select Connect your data from the screen that appears.

Connect your own data

From there you can connect your own data, selecting how many days of data to load. You can load up to 365 days of data. You'll need to sign in, again using the same email address you use to sign in to LinkedIn Sales Navigator through the website.

Sign in

the template app then refreshes the data in the app with your data. You can also set up a scheduled refresh, so the data in your app is as current as your refresh frequency specifies.

Once the data updates, you can see the app populated with your own data.

Getting help

If you run into problems when connecting to your data, you can contact LinkedIn Sales Navigator support at https://www.linkedin.com/help/sales-navigator.

Next steps

There are all sorts of data you can connect to using Power BI Desktop. For more information on data sources, check out the following resources: