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The Act CRM ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Act CRM, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Act CRM like you would a database - query Companies, Contact, Groups, Opportunities, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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Build Dashboards with Act CRM Data in Dundas BI


Create dynamic dashboards and perform analytics based on Act CRM data in Dundas BI.

The CData ODBC Driver for Act CRM enables access to live data from Act CRM under the ODBC standard, allowing you work with Act CRM data in a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and directly, using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to Act CRM data as a generic ODBC Data Provider and create charts, reports, and dashboards based on Act CRM data in Dundas BI.

Connect to Act CRM Data

  1. If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can configure the DSN using the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the Help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

    The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid Act! user credentials. In addition to the authentication values, see the following:

    • Connecting to Act! Premium

      In addition to the authentication values, the URL to Act! is also required; for example https://eup1-iis-04.eu.hosted.act.com/.

      Additionally, you must specify the ActDatabase you will connect to. This is found by going to the About Act! Premium menu of your account, at the top right of the page, in the ? menu. Use the Database Name in the window that appears.

    • Connecting to Act! Premium Cloud

      To connect to your Act! Premium Cloud account, you also need to specify the ActCloudName property. This property is found in the URL address of the Cloud account; for example https://eup1-iis-04.eu.hosted.act.com/ActCloudName/.

    Note that retrieving ActCRM metadata can be expensive. It is advised that you set the CacheMetadata property to store the metadata locally.

    When you configure the DSN, 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.

  2. Open the Dundas BI interface, open the menu, and click New Data Connector.
  3. Configure the Dundas BI Data Connector:
    • Name the Data Connector.
    • Select "ODBC generic" as the Data Provider.
    • Check the "Use System DSN" checkbox.
    • Select the appropriate System DSN.

Add Act CRM Data to a Dashboard

You are now ready to create a dashboard with Act CRM data.

  1. Navigate to the Home page.
  2. Click Explore Data.
  3. Expand the appropriate Data Connector.
  4. Drag the relevant data from the Connector to the panel.
    • You can select an entire "table" to add, but you may need to remove Measures/Rows from the Metric Set to build an appropriate visualization. Alternatively, you can select only the fields you wish to include in the visualization.
    • With the fields selected, you can add any filters or conditions on the Measures and Rows, further customizing the visualization.
  5. Click Re-visualize from the menu bar and select the appropriate visualization for the data.
  6. Click Add To New Dashboard to add the visualization to a new dashboard.
  7. Configure the dashboard, creating dynamic visualizations of Act CRM data.