Build API-Connected Dashboards in Redash

Redash lets you connect and query your data sources, build dashboards to visualize data and share them with your company. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to API data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for API and build visualizations from API data in Redash.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for API, allowing you to easily build reports from live API data in Redash — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Redash generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to API, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested API data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for API Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "API" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to API.

   To connect to your API, configure the following properties on the Global Settings page:

   • In Authentication, select the Type and fill in the required properties
   • In Headers, add the required HTTP headers for your API
   • In Pagination, select the Type and fill in the required properties

   After the configuring the global settings, navigate to the Tables to add tables. For each table you wish to add:

   1. Click "+ Add"
   2. Set the Name for the table
   3. Set Request URL to the API endpoint you wish to work with
   4. (Optional) In Parameters, add the required URL Parameters for your API endpoint
   5. (Optional) In Headers, add the required HTTP headers for the API endpoint
   6. In Table Data click " Configure"
   7. Review the response from the API and click "Next"
   8. Select which element to use as the Repeated Elements and which elements to use as Columns and click "Next"
   9. Preview the tabular model of the API response and click "Confirm"
4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to API data from Redash.

Visualize API Data in Redash

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Redash based on the virtual API database in Connect Server and building a simple visualization from the data.

Create a New Data Source

1. Log into Redash, click on your profile and click "Data Sources"
2. Click the " New Data Source" button
3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the Data Source Type
4. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Name: Name the data source (e.g. API (CData Connect))
   • Host: The full URL to your CData Connect instance (e.g. https://connect_server_url)
   • Port: The port of the CData Connect SQL Server endpoint (e.g. 1433)
   • User: A CData Connect user
   • Password: The password for the above user
   • Database name: The name of the virtual database for API (e.g. API1)
   • Click the checkbox to Use SSQL
5. Click Create
6. Click the "Test Connection" button to ensure you have configured the connection properly

With the new Data Source created, we are ready to visualize our API data.

Create a API Data Visualization

1. Click Create -> New Query
2. Select the newly created Data Source (you can explore the data structure in the New Query wizard)
3. Write a SQL statement to retrieve the data, for example:
   SELECT title, body FROM posts WHERE userId = '12345'
4. Click the "Execute" button to load API data into Redash via CData Connect
5. Use the Visualization Editor to create and analyze graphs from API data
6. You can schedule the query to refresh and update the visualization periodically

SQL Access to API Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to API data from Redash. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Redash, refer to our Connect Server page.