Integrate with Anaplan Data in JReport Designer

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Create charts and reports based on Anaplan data in JReport Designer.

The CData JDBC Driver for Anaplan data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports as if Anaplan were a relational database, allowing you to query Anaplan data using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to Anaplan data as a JDBC data source and create reports based on Anaplan data in JReport Designer.

Connect to Anaplan Data

  1. Edit C:\JReport\Designer\bin\setenv.bat to add the location of the JAR file to the ADDCLASSPATH variable:
    ...
    set ADDCLASSPATH=%JAVAHOME%\lib\tools.jar;C:\Program Files\CData\CData JDBC Driver for Anaplan 2016\lib\cdata.jdbc.anaplan.jar;
    ...
    
  2. Create a new data source by clicking File New Data Source.
  3. In the resulting dialog, create a name for the data source (CData JDBC Driver for Anaplan), select JDBC, and click OK.
  4. In the Get JDBC Connection Information dialog you will configure your connection to the JDBC driver:
    • Driver: Be sure that the Driver box is checked and fill in the name of the class for the driver:
      cdata.jdbc.anaplan.AnaplanDriver
    • URL: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:anaplan: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

      Authenticating to Anaplan

      The driver supports authenticating with Basic, Certificate, or OAuth. In every case, set Region to the region where your Anaplan account data is hosted (e.g., US1, which is the default).

      Using Basic Authentication

      Set AuthScheme to Basic, then supply your Anaplan User and Password. If your workspace uses single sign-on (SSO), you must be assigned as an Exception User to use Basic authentication.

      Using Certificate Authentication

      Set AuthScheme to Certificate, then supply the Certificate, CertificateType, and PrivateKey properties (and the matching CertificatePassword / PrivateKeyPassword if either is encrypted). The certificate must be a CA-issued X.509 certificate registered with your Anaplan tenant administrator.

      Using OAuth Authentication

      Register a custom OAuth application in Anaplan, then set the following properties:

      • OAuthClientId: The client Id assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.
      • OAuthClientSecret: The client secret assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.
      • CallbackURL: The redirect URI defined when you registered your application.
      • InitiateOAuth: Set to GETANDREFRESH to have the driver manage the OAuth token exchange and refresh automatically.

      See the Getting Started chapter of the help documentation for a guide to creating a custom OAuth app and using OAuth.

      Built-in Connection String Designer

      For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Anaplan JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

      java -jar cdata.jdbc.anaplan.jar
      

      Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

      When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

      Below is a typical JDBC URL:

      jdbc:anaplan:OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackURL=your_callback_url;Region=US1;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;
    • User: The username to authenticate with; typically left blank.
    • Password: The password to authenticate with; typically left blank.
  5. In the Add Table dialog, select the tables you wish to include in your report (or in future reports using this data source) and click Add.

    Click Done once the dialog has completed loading the tables.

  6. In the Catalog Browser, you can create the queries that you will use to populate your reports. You can do this now, or after you create your report. In either case, expand () the data source (CData JDBC Driver for Anaplan), right-click on Queries, and select Add Query.
  7. In the Add Table/View/Query dialog, expand () the JDBC URL and Tables and select the table(s) you wish to use in the query and click OK.
  8. In the Query Editor dialog, you can select the columns you wish to include or simply click the SQL button and manually input your own query. For example:
    SELECT Region, Product FROM [Workspace].[Model].[Sales] WHERE Value = '100'
    

    With the query built, click OK to close the Query Editor dialog. At this point you are ready to add Anaplan data to a new or existing report.

    NOTE: Now that the query is built, you can create a Business View based on the query. With a Business View, you can create Web reports or library components based on the query. For more information on this, refer to the JReport tutorials.

Add Anaplan Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with Anaplan data.

  1. Create a new report (File New Page Report) or open the Chart Wizard for an existing report.
  2. Select the Query (or create a new one; see above).
  3. Assign a Category and Value for the chart from the columns in your Query and click Finish.
  4. Click the View tab for your report to see the chart.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Anaplan Driver to get started:

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