Discover how a bimodal integration strategy can address the major data management challenges facing your organization today.
Get the Report →Visualize Invoiced Data in Tableau Desktop (through CData Connect)
Create a virtual SQL Server database for Invoiced data in CData Connect (or Connect Server) and build visualizations from live Invoiced data in Tableau Desktop.
Tableau is a visual analytics platform transforming the way businesses use data to solve problems. When paired with CData Connect (or Connect Server), you can easily get access to live Invoiced data within Tableau.
CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Invoiced, allowing you to easily build reports from live Invoiced data in Tableau Desktop — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Tableau Desktop 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 Invoiced, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Invoiced data.
This article shows how to create a virtual SQL Server database for Invoiced, connect to the virtual database in Tableau, and build a simple chart.
Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Invoiced Data
CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.
- Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
- Select "Invoiced" from Available Data Sources.
-
Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Invoiced.
Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Invoiced Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Invoiced.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Invoiced (see below).
Invoiced API Profile Settings
In order to authenticate to Invoiced, you'll need to provide your API Key. An API key can be obtained by signing in to your account, and then going to Settings > Developers > API Keys. Set the API Key in the ProfileSettings property to connect.
- Click Save Changes
- 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 Invoiced data from Tableau Desktop.
Visualize Live Invoiced Data in Tableau Desktop
The steps below outline connecting to the virtual Invoiced database in CData Connect and building a simple visualization from the data.
- Open Tableau and click "Microsoft SQL Server" under Connect -> To a Server.
- In the connection wizard, enter the values for your CData Connect instance and click "Sign In"
- Server: the address of your Connect instance and port of the TDS endpoint, separated by a comma (default port is: 1433)
- Database: the virtual database you configured for the Invoiced data
- Username & Password: the credentials for a CData Connect user
- Select your newly created database and the table(s) you wish to visualize (defining relationships for JOINed tables as needed).
- Select Dimensions and Measures and configure your visualization.
SQL Access to Invoiced Data from On-Premise Applications
At this point, you have a direct connection to live Invoiced data from your Tableau Desktop workbook. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 200 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including Invoiced) from desktop applications like Tableau refer to our CData Connect page or download a free trial.