Build Adobe Analytics 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 Adobe Analytics data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Adobe Analytics and build visualizations from Adobe Analytics data in Tableau Cloud.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Adobe Analytics, allowing you to easily build visualizations from live Adobe Analytics 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 Adobe Analytics, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Adobe Analytics data.

Configure Adobe Analytics Connectivity for Tableau Online

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

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

   Adobe Analytics 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" section of the help documentation for a guide.

   Retrieving GlobalCompanyId

   GlobalCompanyId is a required connection property. If you do not know your Global Company ID, you can find it in the request URL for the users/me endpoint on the Swagger UI. After logging into the Swagger UI Url, expand the users endpoint and then click the GET users/me button. Click the Try it out and Execute buttons. Note your Global Company ID shown in the Request URL immediately preceding the users/me endpoint.

   Retrieving Report Suite Id

   Report Suite ID (RSID) is also a required connection property. In the Adobe Analytics UI, navigate to Admin -> Report Suites and you will get a list of your report suites along with their identifiers next to the name.

   After setting the GlobalCompanyId, RSID and OAuth connection properties, you are ready to connect to Adobe Analytics.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Adobe Analytics 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 Adobe Analytics data from Tableau Cloud.

Visualize Live Adobe Analytics Data in Tableau Cloud

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Tableau Cloud based on the virtual Adobe Analytics 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 Adobe Analytics connection you created (e.g. AdobeAnalytics1)
   • 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 Adobe Analytics Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Adobe Analytics 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.