How to Visualize ActiveTrail Data in Python with pandas

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData API Driver for Python, the pandas & Matplotlib modules, and the SQLAlchemy toolkit, you can build ActiveTrail-connected Python applications and scripts for visualizing ActiveTrail data. This article shows how to use the pandas, SQLAlchemy, and Matplotlib built-in functions to connect to ActiveTrail data, execute queries, and visualize the results.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData Python Connector offers unmatched performance for interacting with live ActiveTrail data in Python. When you issue complex SQL queries from ActiveTrail, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to ActiveTrail and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to ActiveTrail Data

Connecting to ActiveTrail data looks just like connecting to any relational data source. Create a connection string using the required connection properties. For this article, you will pass the connection string as a parameter to the create_engine function.

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

ActiveTrail API Profile Settings

ActiveTrail uses API key authentication. To obtain an API key:

1. Log in to your ActiveTrail account at https://app.activetrail.com
2. Navigate to your account settings and locate the API integration section
3. Generate or copy your existing API key

After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your ActiveTrail API key.

Follow the procedure below to install the required modules and start accessing ActiveTrail through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the pandas & Matplotlib modules and the SQLAlchemy toolkit:

pip install pandas
pip install matplotlib
pip install sqlalchemy

Be sure to import the module with the following:

import pandas
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sqlalchemy import create_engine

Visualize ActiveTrail Data in Python

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the create_engine function to create an Engine for working with ActiveTrail data.

engine = create_engine("api:///?Profile=C:\profiles\ActiveTrail.apip&AuthScheme=APIKey&APIKey=your_api_key")

Execute SQL to ActiveTrail

Use the read_sql function from pandas to execute any SQL statement and store the resultset in a DataFrame.

df = pandas.read_sql("SELECT Id, Email FROM GroupMembers WHERE GroupId = '356069'", engine)

Visualize ActiveTrail Data

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, use the plot function to build a chart to display the ActiveTrail data. The show method displays the chart in a new window.

df.plot(kind="bar", x="Id", y="Email")
plt.show()

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData API Driver for Python to start building Python apps and scripts with connectivity to ActiveTrail data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import pandas
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sqlalchemy import create_engin

engine = create_engine("api:///?Profile=C:\profiles\ActiveTrail.apip&AuthScheme=APIKey&APIKey=your_api_key")
df = pandas.read_sql("SELECT Id, Email FROM GroupMembers WHERE GroupId = '356069'", engine)

df.plot(kind="bar", x="Id", y="Email")
plt.show()