Create Apps from API Data in Qlik Sense Cloud

Qlik Sense Cloud allows you to create and share data visualizations and interact with information in new ways. CData Connect Cloud creates a live connection to your API. By pairing Qlik Sense Cloud with CData Connect Cloud, you get true cloud-to-cloud connectivity to all of your SaaS and cloud-based Big Data and NoSQL sources — no need to migrate your data or write your integrations. Simply connect to Connect Cloud from Qlik Sense Cloud and get instant, live access to your API data.

In this article, we walk through two connections:

1. Connecting to your API in Connect Cloud
2. Connecting to Connect Cloud from Qlik Sense Cloud to create a model and build a simple dashboard

Configure your API Connectivity for Qlik Sense Cloud

Connectivity to your API from Qlik Cloud is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with API data from Qlik Cloud, we start by creating and configuring a your API connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "API" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to your API.

   To connect to your API, configure the following properties on the Global Settings page:

   • In Authentication, select the Type and fill in the required properties
   • In Headers, add the required HTTP headers for your API
   • In Pagination, select the Type and fill in the required properties

   After the configuring the global settings, navigate to the Tables to add tables. For each table you wish to add:

   1. Click "+ Add"
   2. Set the Name for the table
   3. Set Request URL to the API endpoint you wish to work with
   4. (Optional) In Parameters, add the required URL Parameters for your API endpoint
   5. (Optional) In Headers, add the required HTTP headers for the API endpoint
   6. In Table Data click " Configure"
   7. Review the response from the API and click "Next"
   8. Select which element to use as the Repeated Elements and which elements to use as Columns and click "Next"
   9. Preview the tabular model of the API response and click "Confirm"
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add your API Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect Cloud through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect Cloud. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the 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 and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to API data from Qlik Sense Cloud.

Create a Qlik Sense App from API Data

This section walks through adding API data to a Qlik Sense app for visualizations, analytics, reporting, and more.

Create a New App and Upload Data

1. Log into your Qlik Sense instance and click the button to create a new app
2. Name and configure the new app and click "Create"
3. In the workspace, click to open the new app
4. Click to add data from files and other sources
5. Select the Microsoft SQL Server connector and set the configuration properties.
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com
   • Set Port to 14333
   • Set Database to the connection you created (e.g. API1)
   • Set User name to the Connect Cloud user (e.g. [email protected])
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
   
6. Select an owner for the connection
7. Select a your API entity (Table) to view
8. Click Next, configure the model, and load the data into Qlik Sense.

Generate Insights or Customize Your App

With the data loaded into Qlik Sense, you are ready to begin discovering insights. You can build custom visualizations, reports, and dashboards engineered to gain actionable insights into your API data.

More Information & Free Trial

Now, you have created a simple but powerful dashboard from live API data. For more information on creating OData feeds from your API (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live API data in Qlik Sense Cloud.