Build Act-On Visualizations in Tableau Cloud

Tableau Cloud is an analytics platform fully hosted in the cloud. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Act-On data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Act-On and build visualizations from Act-On data in Tableau Cloud.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Act-On, allowing you to easily build visualizations from live Act-On data in Tableau Cloud without installing connectors or publishing worksheets and data sources from Tableau Desktop. As you build visualizations, Tableau Cloud generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Act-On, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Act-On data.

Configure Act-On Connectivity for Tableau Online

Connectivity to Act-On from Tableau Online is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Act-On data from Tableau Online, we start by creating and configuring a Act-On connection.

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

   ActOn uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties.

   See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

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

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Act-On data from Tableau Cloud.

Visualize Live Act-On Data in Tableau Cloud

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Tableau Cloud based on the virtual Act-On database in Connect Cloud and building a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Tableau Cloud, select a account, and create a new workbook.
2. In the new workbook, choose the Microsoft SQL Server Connector from the data wizard and fill in the values for your Connect Cloud instance.
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333
   • Set Database to the Act-On connection you created (e.g. ActOn1)
   • Set Username to your Connect Cloud username (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Set Password to a PAT for the above user
   • Check the Require SSL checkbox
3. Select your newly created database and the table(s) you wish to visualize (defining relationships for JOINad tables as needed).
4. Select Dimensions and Measures and configure your visualization.

Real-Time Access to Act-On Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Act-On data from your Tableau Cloud workbook. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more, with no need to publish data sources and workbooks from Tableau Desktop. For more information on gaining live access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Tableau Cloud, refer to our Connect Cloud page.