How to get USAspending Federal Contract Awards in Power BI

New US federal contract awards from USAspending: recipient organization, awarding agency, amount, NAICS, dates, award ID, and link. usaspending.gov is one page of it. A run reads that public list and saves one row per result.

Set up the Apify actor

Apify is where this run is collected. An actor is the program that collects the rows. A task is that program saved with your settings, so the next section can ask for the latest rows. You need a free Apify account.

01
Open USAspending Federal Contract Awards and click Try for free. Create an Apify account if you do not have one. The Free plan does not ask for a card.
02
You are on the input form. Keep the sample for this first run.
```
{
    "daysBack": 7,
    "maxItems": 5
}
```
03
Leave the proxy setting as it is. Click Start and wait until the run says Succeeded.
04
Open Storage, then Dataset. You should see awardId, recipientName, awardAmount, awardingAgency.
05
When you want the real list, raise maxItems. The sample cap is only there so the first run stays small.
06
Go back to the input and choose Save as a new task. Name it after this list.
07
Open the task. Copy the task ID from the address bar. Excel, Sheets, Power BI, and the other guides ask for this ID.
08
On the task, open Schedules and add a weekly run if you want fresh rows. Each run pays the start charge and the charge for the rows. The amounts are in the price list on this page.
09
Open Settings, then API & Integrations, and copy an API token. Excel, Sheets, and the other guides put this token in a download link. Anyone with that link can download the rows, so treat it like a password.

How to set up in Power BI

Use the task ID and the API token from Set up the Apify actor, above.

01
In Power BI Desktop, choose Home, Get data, Web.

Paste this address. Replace TASK_ID and YOUR_TOKEN. Choose Anonymous, then Connect.

https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-tasks/TASK_ID/runs/last/dataset/items?format=json&clean=true&status=SUCCEEDED&token=YOUR_TOKEN

03
Load the rows. awardId, recipientName, awardAmount, awardingAgency, startDate are the columns to keep.
04
After you publish, refresh against that same URL. The weekly schedule from Set up the Apify actor, above, is what puts a new dataset behind the URL.

Schema

Examples come from the actor sample, not a live result.

Name	Description	Example
`awardId`	Award Id	`DEAC0576RL01830`
`recipientName`	Recipient Name	`BATTELLE MEMORIAL INSTITUTE`
`awardAmount`	Award Amount	`30912550571.06`
`awardingAgency`	Awarding Agency	`Department of Energy`
`startDate`	Start Date	`1978-09-15`
`endDate`	End Date	`2027-09-30`
`awardUrl`	Award Url	`https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_DEAC0576RL01830_8900_-NONE-_-NONE-`
`scrapedAt`	Scraped At	`2026-09-22T12:00:00+00:00`

awardIdAward IdDEAC0576RL01830
recipientNameRecipient NameBATTELLE MEMORIAL INSTITUTE
awardAmountAward Amount30912550571.06
awardingAgencyAwarding AgencyDepartment of Energy
startDateStart Date1978-09-15
endDateEnd Date2027-09-30
awardUrlAward Urlhttps://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_DEAC0576RL01830_8900_-NONE-_-NONE-
scrapedAtScraped At2026-09-22T12:00:00+00:00