Integrate Todoist Data in the Pentaho Report Designer

The CData JDBC Driver for Todoist data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to Todoist data as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on Todoist data 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 Todoist connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

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

     Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Todoist Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Todoist.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Todoist (see below).

     Todoist API Profile Settings

     To authenticate to Todoist, and connect to your own data or to allow other users to connect to their data, you can use the OAuth standard.

     First, you will need to register an OAuth application with Todoist. To do so, go to App Management Console, create a new application and configure a valid OAuth redirect URL. Your Oauth application will be assigned a client id and a client secret.

     After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

     • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
     • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
     • OAuthClientId: Set this to the client_id that is specified in you app settings.
     • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client_secret that is specified in you app settings.
     • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that is specified in your app settings

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.api.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:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Todoist.apip;Authscheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH
   • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver.
   • User Name: The username to authenticate with.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with.

Add Todoist Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with Todoist data.

1. Add the Todoist 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 Id, Priority FROM Tasks WHERE Completed = 'false'
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 Tasks table.
4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.