Create Reports from Certinia Data in Looker Studio

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Certinia data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Certinia and generating reports from Certinia data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect AI offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Certinia, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Certinia data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Certinia. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Certinia data.

Configure Certinia Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to Certinia from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Certinia data from Looker Studio, we start by creating and configuring a Certinia connection.

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

2. Select "Certinia" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Certinia.

   There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Certinia: login credentials, SSO, and OAuth.

   Authenticating with a Login and Token

   Set the User and Password to your login credentials. Additionally, set the SecurityToken. By default, the SecurityToken is required, but you can make it optional by allowing a range of trusted IP addresses.

   To disable the security token:

   1. Log in to Certinia and enter "Network Access" in the Quick Find box in the setup section.
   2. Add your IP address to the list of trusted IP addresses.

   To obtain the security token:

   1. Open the personal information page on certinia.com.
   2. Click the link to reset your security token. The token will be emailed to you.
   3. Specify the security token in the SecurityToken connection property or append it to the Password.

   Authenticating with OAuth

   If you do not have access to the user name and password or do not want to require them, use the OAuth user consent flow. See the OAuth section in the Help for an authentication guide.

   Connecting to Certinia Sandbox Accounts

   Set UseSandbox to true (false by default) to use a Certinia sandbox account. Ensure that you specify a sandbox user name in User.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Certinia Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Certinia data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Certinia Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Looker Studio to create a new Certinia data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect AI Connector.

2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account.
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance
4. In the CData Connect AI Connector in Looker Studio select Connections to import from the dropdown and click Next

5. Now select a Connection (e.g. Certinia1) and click Next
6. Select a Table (e.g. Account) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue
7. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.

8. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
9. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.

Live Access to Certinia Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Certinia data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Certinia data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.