Access Live Adobe Target Data in Tableau with CData API Server

Tableau is one of the leading BI platforms for connecting, visualizing, and sharing data insights.

With the CData API Server and the Adobe Target Connector (or any of the 270+ available), you can quickly create APIs that expose live data from multiple sources, using industry standards like OData and Swagger for seamless integration with Tableau.

In this article, we'll create a simple Tableau dashboard with live data from Adobe Target, without moving or replicating data.

Let's get started!

Prerequisites

1. CData API Server: Download a free trial here.
2. Tableau: Sign in, sign up, or download from here.
3. An active Adobe Target account with access to your data.

Overview

Here's a quick overview of the steps we'll follow:

1. Install the CData API Server, configure a connection to Adobe Target, and use the OData endpoints.
2. Connect to these endpoints in Tableau to build live dashboards and reports.

Step 1: Install the API Server and Add a Connection to Adobe Target

1.1 Install the API Server

If you haven't already, download an installer for your machine from the CData API Server page. Follow the installation instruction to complete the setup.

Once installed, you can start the server in the following ways:

• Windows: CData API Server runs as a service by default. Make sure the service is running, then open the http://hostname:port (e.g., http://localhost:8080/) in your browser to access the API Server admin console.
• Linux/Mac: You can run the server manually or as a service. To start it manually, navigate to the installation directory and run java -jar apiserver.jar.
• Alternatively, run service.sh with root privileges to set up API Server as a Linux system service.

1.2 Enable CORS

When Tableau and the CData API Server are hosted on different domains, CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) must be enabled to allow Tableau to access the data endpoints. To enable CORS in the API Server:

1. Go to Settings and click the icon to edit CORS settings.
2. Enable Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS).
3. Enable Allow all domains without '*' to accept any origin.
4. In Access-Control-Allow-Origin, enter your Tableau origin domain, or use * to allow all domains (suitable for public APIs).
5. Enable Access-Control-Allow-Credentials to allow cookies and auth headers.
6. In Access-Control-Allow-Methods, enter GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS.
7. In Access-Control-Allow-Headers, enter Authorization, Content-Type.
8. Set Access-Control-Max-Age (default: 3600 seconds) to cache preflight requests.
9. Click Save.

1.3 Add a Adobe Target Connection in the API Server

1. Go to Settings and click Add Connection in the top-right.
2. Select Adobe Target. If it's not visible, toggle off Only Installed to view all connectors.
3. Click Install Connector to auto-install. For a manual setup, choose Manual Install and upload the downloaded ZIP file.
4. Once installed, click Adobe Target again to open its connection settings and configure using the details below.

To connect to Adobe Target, you must provide the Tenant property along with OAuth connection properties mentioned below. Note that while other connection properties can influence processing behavior, they do not affect the ability to connect.

To determine your Tenant name:

1. Log in to Adobe Experience. The URL will look similar to: "https://experience.adobe.com/#/@mycompanyname/preferences/general-section".
2. Extract the value after the "/#/@". In this example, it is "mycompanyname".
3. Set the Tenant connection property to that value.

User Accounts (OAuth)

You must set AuthScheme to OAuthClient for all user account flows.

Note: Adobe authentication via OAuth requires updating your token every two weeks.

All Applications

CData provides an embedded OAuth application that simplifies OAuth authentication. Alternatively, you can create a custom OAuth application. Review Creating a Custom OAuth App in the Help documentation for more information.

Obtaining the OAuth Access Token

Set the following properties to connect:

• InitiateOAuth: Set to GETANDREFRESH to automatically perform the OAuth exchange and refresh the OAuthAccessToken as needed.
• OAuthClientId : Set to the client Id assigned when you registered your app.
• OAuthClientSecret : Set to the client secret assigned when you registered your app.
• CallbackURL : Set to the redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: https://localhost:3333

With these settings, the provider obtains an access token from Adobe Target, which it uses to request data. The OAuth values are stored in the location specified by OAuthSettingsLocation, ensuring they persist across connections.

5. Click Save & Test to validate and complete the connection setup.

1.4 Add and Configure Users

To allow secure access to the created OData endpoints, create and configure Users in the CData API Server. Each user has authentication credentials and role-based access control, ensuring that only authorized users with appropriate roles can query the connected data.

1. Go to Users from the navigation pane, then click Add User in the top-right corner.
2. Enter a Username and set a secure Password for the user.
3. Select a Role:
   • Admin: Full access to all features, including settings and connections.
   • Query: Limited to data access via API endpoints (suitable for Tableau use).
4. (Optional) Configure rate limits:
   • Requests Per Hour: Number of allowed API calls per hour (default: 1000).
   • Max Concurrent Requests: Number of parallel API requests allowed (default: 10).
5. Define Privileges for the user:
   • GET: Allows data retrieval.
   • POST: Allows creation of new records.
   • PUT, MERGE, PATCH: Allows updates to existing records.
   • DELETE: Allows deletion of records.
6. Click Add User to save and activate the user account.

Once a user is added, an Authtoken is automatically generated. This token can be used in API requests as a secure authentication method instead of a password.

You can also refresh the Authtoken, disable it, or set expiration rules (e.g., number of days until expiry) by enabling the Token Expiration option in the user settings.

1.5 Add Tables for the Endpoint

To make data from Adobe Target available in Tableau via OData, you need to expose your desired tables through the API Server. Here's how:

1. In the CData API Server, go to API from the left navigation, then click Add Table at the top-right.
2. Select the Adobe Target connection you configured earlier, then click Next.
3. Browse available entities and schema by expanding the Tables section. Select individual tables, or click the TABLE NAME checkbox at the top to select all. Then click Confirm.

1.6 Access the Endpoints in Tableau

Now that your API is configured, you can connect Tableau directly to the OData endpoints to visualize live data. Below are the URL formats for the OData endpoints:

Endpoint		URL
Entity List		http://address:port/api.rsc/
Table Metadata (e.g., albums)		http://address:port/api.rsc/albums/$metadata?@json
Table Data (e.g., albums)		http://address:port/api.rsc/albums

These OData endpoints can now be connected to Tableau to create live dashboards, charts, and reports.

The CData API Server supports full OData filtering capabilities (OData ABNF). For refined queries, you can append standard OData query parameters like $select, $filter, $orderby, $top, and $skip to the requests.

Step 2: Create a Simple Dashboard in Tableau

With your CData API Server exposing OData endpoints for Adobe Target data, you can now connect Tableau to the API and build a real-time dashboard. Here's how to do it.

For this article, we'll use Tableau Desktop on Windows, but the steps should work with all Tableau versions.

2.1. Connect to the OData Endpoint

1. Get the CData API Endpoint URL by logging into your CData API Server. Go to API from the left navigation, then click View Endpoints at the top-right.
2. Copy the URL (e.g., http://localhost:8080/api.rsc).

3. Launch Tableau and log in to your account.
4. On the left under To a Server, click More, then search for OData and select it.

5. Add the following details:
   • Server: Your CData API Server Endpoint URL (e.g., http://localhost:8080/api.rsc)
   • Authentication: Select Username and Password.
   • Username: Enter your CData Server API Username.
   • Password: Enter your CData API Server Password.

2.2. Create a Dashboard

1. On the left under Tables, drag your desired table to the canvas, then click on Sheet 1 at the bottom left.

2. In Sheet 1, on the left under Tables, double-click your desired columns from the selected table to add them to the view.

3. Drag and drop columns into the Columns and Rows sections at the top to create a visualization. In this example, we have created a simple forecasting bar chart.

2.3. Refine Your Dashboard

Continue refining your dashboard by adding filters, formatting, and combining multiple sheets. You can create more complex visualizations and interactive dashboards based on your live API data.

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