I see a lot of questions on stackoverflow about connecting to XMLA endpoints using Python, but I dont see many resources for R. I’d love to connect to a Power Bi XMLA endpoint using R.

I see articles like this walking you through it, but that requires downloading their proprietary .jar driver that you have to pay for.

I also see stack questions like this for python, which mention using “olap”. There is an R package for connecting that way called “olapR”, but it appears to not be a ‘normal’ R package (in the sense that you can install it from cran or github), and appears to be installed when you get MS SQL server, which would be a pain to install on my work computer.

Are there any other ways to connect? On the Power Bi side I should have all the prerequisites (Premium workspace, found the XMLA server link etc…).

So to summarize, if I wanted to connect to a Power BI XMLA endpoint using R and lets say list tables available… is there a way to do that without installing extra software?