Use Dash to Build to Web Apps on Canny Data

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData API Driver for Python, the pandas module, and the Dash framework, you can build Canny-connected web applications for Canny data. This article shows how to connect to Canny with the CData Connector and use pandas and Dash to build a simple web app for visualizing Canny data.

With built-in, optimized data processing, the CData Python Connector offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Canny data in Python. When you issue complex SQL queries from Canny, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Canny and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Canny Data

Connecting to Canny data looks just like connecting to any relational data source. Create a connection string using the required connection properties. For this article, you will pass the connection string as a parameter to the create_engine function.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Canny Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Canny.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Canny (see below).

Canny API Profile Settings

Canny uses a secret API key to control access to the API. The API key is sent as a JSON body parameter named 'apiKey' in every HTTP POST request to the Canny API endpoints.

To authenticate with the Canny API, you need your company-level secret API key. You can find this key in your Canny account under Settings > API.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Canny company-level secret API key from the Settings > API page in your Canny dashboard.

After installing the CData Canny Connector, follow the procedure below to install the other required modules and start accessing Canny through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the required modules and frameworks:

pip install pandas
pip install dash
pip install dash-daq

Visualize Canny Data in Python

Once the required modules and frameworks are installed, we are ready to build our web app. Code snippets follow, but the full source code is available at the end of the article.

First, be sure to import the modules (including the CData Connector) with the following:

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.api as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the connect function for the CData Canny Connector to create a connection for working with Canny data.

cnxn = mod.connect("Profile=C:\profiles\Canny.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your-canny-api-key';")

Execute SQL to Canny

Use the read_sql function from pandas to execute any SQL statement and store the result set in a DataFrame.

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM Boards WHERE IsPrivate = 'false'", cnxn)

Configure the Web App

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, we can begin configuring the web app, assigning a name, stylesheet, and title.

app_name = 'dash-apiedataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'

Configure the Layout

The next step is to create a bar graph based on our Canny data and configure the app layout.

trace = go.Bar(x=df.Id, y=df.Name, name='Id')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='Canny Boards Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

Set the App to Run

With the connection, app, and layout configured, we are ready to run the app. The last lines of Python code follow.

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)

Now, use Python to run the web app and a browser to view the Canny data.

python api-dash.py

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData API Driver for Python to start building Python apps with connectivity to Canny data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.api as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

cnxn = mod.connect("Profile=C:\profiles\Canny.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your-canny-api-key';")

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM Boards WHERE IsPrivate = 'false'", cnxn)
app_name = 'dash-apidataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'
trace = go.Bar(x=df.Id, y=df.Name, name='Id')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='Canny Boards Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)