Create Reports from Active Directory Data in Looker Studio

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect Cloud, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Active Directory data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Active Directory and generating reports from Active Directory data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect Cloud offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Active Directory, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Active Directory data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Active Directory. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Active Directory data.

Configure Active Directory Connectivity for Looker Studio

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

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

   To establish a connection, set the following properties:

   • Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
   • Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.

   • BaseDN: This will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided.

     Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Active Directory Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Active Directory data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Active Directory Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Looker Studio to create a new Active Directory data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect Cloud Connector.
2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account.
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud instance
4. In the CData Connect Cloud Connector in Looker Studio select a Connection (e.g. ActiveDirectory1) and click Next
5. Select a Table (e.g. User) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue
6. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.
7. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
8. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.

Live Access to Active Directory Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Active Directory data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Active Directory data.

Try CData Connect Cloud and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.