Create Interactive Metabase Dashboards that Work with Asana Data

Metabase is an open source data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive dashboards. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, users can easily create visualizations and dashboards linked to live Asana data. This article describes how to connect to Asana and build a simple visualization using Asana data.

CData Connect provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Asana, allowing you to easily integrate with live Asana data in Metabase — without replicating the data. Connect looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Metabase and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Asana, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Asana data.

Configure Asana Connectivity for Metabase

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

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

   You can optionally set the following to refine the data returned from Asana.

   • WorkspaceId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Workspace to only return projects from the specified workspace. To get your workspace id, navigate to https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/workspaces while logged into Asana. This displays a JSON object containing your workspace name and Id.
   • ProjectId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Project to only return data mapped under the specified project. Project IDs can be found in the URL of your project's Overview page. This will be the numbers directly after /0/.

   Connect Using OAuth Authentication

   You must use OAuth to authenticate with Asana. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Asana using the browser. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Asana 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 Asana data from Metabase.

Connect to CData Connect from Metabase

After creating the virtual database, navigate to your Metabase instance. Use the SQL Server interface to connect to Connect Cloud.

1. Navigate to the administration screen (Settings -> Admin) and click "Add Database" from the "Databases" tab
2. Configure the connection to Connect Cloud and click "Save"
   • Database type: Select "SQL Server"
   • Name: Name the connection (e.g. "Asana (Connect Cloud)")
   • Host: tds.cdata.com
   • Port: 14333
   • Database name: The name of the connection you just created (e.g. Asana1)
   • Username: A Connect Cloud username (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Password: The PAT for the above Connect Cloud user
   • Click to Use a secure connection (SSL)

Execute Asana Data with Metabase

Once you configure the connection to Connect Cloud, you can query Asana and build visualizations.

1. Use the "Write SQL" tool to retrieve the Asana data
2. Write a SQL query based on the Asana connection in CData Connect Cloud, e.g.
   
   

   SELECT Id, WorkspaceId FROM projects WHERE Archived = 'true'

3. Navigate to the "Visualization" screen, choose a visualization, and configure the visualization

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have built a simple visualization from Asana data in Metabase. You can continue to work with live Asana data in Metabase just like you would any SQL Server database. For more information on creating a live connection to Asana (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Asana data in Metabase today.