How to integrate Metabase with Confluence Data

Metabase is an open source data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive dashboards. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, users can easily create visualizations and dashboards linked to live Confluence data. This article describes how to connect to Confluence and build a simple visualization using Confluence data.

CData Connect provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Confluence, allowing you to easily integrate with live Confluence data in Metabase — without replicating the data. Connect looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Metabase and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Confluence, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Confluence data.

Configure Confluence Connectivity for Metabase

Connectivity to Confluence from Metabase is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Confluence data from Metabase, we start by creating and configuring a Confluence connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Confluence" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Confluence.

   Obtaining an API Token

   An API token is necessary for account authentication. To generate one, login to your Atlassian account and navigate to API tokens > Create API token. The generated token will be displayed.

   Connect Using a Confluence Cloud Account

   To connect to a Cloud account, provide the following (Note: Password has been deprecated for connecting to a Cloud Account and is now used only to connect to a Server Instance.):

   • User: The user which will be used to authenticate with the Confluence server.
   • APIToken: The API Token associated with the currently authenticated user.
   • Url: The URL associated with your JIRA endpoint. For example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.

   Connect Using a Confluence Server Instance

   To connect to a Server instance, provide the following:

   • User: The user which will be used to authenticate with the Confluence instance.
   • Password: The password which will be used to authenticate with the Confluence server.
   • Url: The URL associated with your JIRA endpoint. For example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Confluence Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Confluence data from Metabase.

Connect to CData Connect from Metabase

After creating the virtual database, navigate to your Metabase instance. Use the SQL Server interface to connect to Connect Cloud.

1. Navigate to the administration screen (Settings -> Admin) and click "Add Database" from the "Databases" tab
2. Configure the connection to Connect Cloud and click "Save"
   • Database type: Select "SQL Server"
   • Name: Name the connection (e.g. "Confluence (Connect Cloud)")
   • Host: tds.cdata.com
   • Port: 14333
   • Database name: The name of the connection you just created (e.g. Confluence1)
   • Username: A Connect Cloud username (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Password: The PAT for the above Connect Cloud user
   • Click to Use a secure connection (SSL)

Execute Confluence Data with Metabase

Once you configure the connection to Connect Cloud, you can query Confluence and build visualizations.

1. Use the "Write SQL" tool to retrieve the Confluence data
2. Write a SQL query based on the Confluence connection in CData Connect Cloud, e.g.
   
   

   SELECT Key, Name FROM Pages WHERE Id = '10000'

3. Navigate to the "Visualization" screen, choose a visualization, and configure the visualization

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have built a simple visualization from Confluence data in Metabase. You can continue to work with live Confluence data in Metabase just like you would any SQL Server database. For more information on creating a live connection to Confluence (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Confluence data in Metabase today.