Integrate RSS Feeds in the Pentaho Report Designer

The CData JDBC Driver for RSS feeds enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to RSS feeds as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on RSS feeds in Pentaho.

Connect and Create a Report

1. Copy the JAR file of the driver, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, to the \Report-Designer\lib\jdbc\ folder in the Pentaho directory.
2. Run the report-designer.bat file in the \Report-Designer\ folder to open the Report-Designer UI.

3. Create a new data source with the driver by clicking Data -> Add Data Source -> Advanced -> JDBC (Custom) and then creating a new RSS connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

   • Custom Connection URL property: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:rss: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     You can connect to RSS and Atom feeds, as well as feeds with custom extensions. To connect to a feed, set the URL property. You can also access secure feeds. A variety of authentication mechanisms are supported. See the help documentation for details.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the RSS JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.rss.jar

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

     Below is a typical JDBC URL:

     jdbc:rss:URI=http://broadcastCorp/rss/;
   • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.rss.RSSDriver.
   • User Name: The username to authenticate with.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with.

Add RSS Feeds to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with RSS feeds.

1. Add the RSS source to your report: Click Data -> Add Data Source -> JDBC and select the data source.

2. Configure the query. This article uses the one below:

   SELECT Pubdate, Author FROM RSSFeed
3. Drag a chart onto your report and double-click it to edit the chart. Run the report to display the chart. You can use the results of this query to create a simple chart for the Latest News table.
4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.