How to connect Amazon QuickSight to Cvent Data

Amazon QuickSight allows users to build interactive dashboards in the cloud. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get cloud-to-cloud access to Cvent data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Cvent in Connect AI and build dashboards in Amazon QuickSight with access to Cvent data.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Cvent, allowing you to allowing build visualizations from Cvent data in Amazon QuickSight. By importing your Cvent data into the Amazon QuickSight "Super-fast, Parallel, In-memory Calculation Engine" (SPICE), you can leverage the powerful data processing features of the Amazon ecosystem to build responsive dashboards. And with the ability to schedule refreshes of the data stored in SPICE, you control how up-to-date your dashboards are.

Configure Cvent Connectivity for Amazon QuickSight

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

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

2. Select "Cvent" from the Add Connection panel

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

   Before you can authenticate to Cvent, you must create a workspace and an OAuth application.

   Creating a Workspace

   To create a workspace:

   1. Sign into Cvent and navigate to App Switcher (the blue button in the upper right corner of the page) >> Admin.
   2. In the Admin menu, navigate to Integrations >> REST API.
   3. A new tab launches for Developer Management. Click on Manage API Access in the new tab.
   4. Create a Workspace and name it. Select the scopes you would like your developers to have access to. Scopes control what data domains the developer can access.
      • Choose All to allow developers to choose any scope, and any future scopes added to the REST API.
      • Choose Custom to limit the scopes developers can choose for their OAuth apps to selected scopes. To access all tables exposed by the driver, you need to set the following scopes:

        event/attendees:read	event/attendees:write	event/contacts:read
        event/contacts:write	event/custom-fields:read	event/custom-fields:write
        event/events:read	event/events:write	event/sessions:delete
        event/sessions:read	event/sessions:write	event/speakers:delete
        event/speakers:read	event/speakers:write	budget/budget-items:read
        budget/budget-items:write	exhibitor/exhibitors:read	exhibitor/exhibitors:write
        survey/surveys:read	survey/surveys:write

   Creating an OAuth Application

   After you have set up a Workspace and invited them, developers can sign up and create a custom OAuth app. See the Creating a Custom OAuth Application section in the Help documentation for more information.

   Connecting to Cvent

   After creating an OAuth application, set the following connection properties to connect to Cvent:

   • InitiateOAuth: GETANDREFRESH. Used to automatically get and refresh the OAuthAccessToken.
   • OAuthClientId: The Client ID associated with the OAuth application. You can find this on the Applications page in the Cvent Developer Portal.
   • OAuthClientSecret: The Client secret associated with the OAuth application. You can find this on the Applications page in the Cvent Developer Portal.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Cvent Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI 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 AI. 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 AI 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 Cvent data from Amazon QuickSight.

Import Cvent Data into SPICE and Create Interactive Dashboards

The steps below outline creating a new data set based on the connection to Cvent in Connect AI, importing the dataset into SPICE, and building a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Amazon QuickSight and click "Manage data."
2. Click "Now data set," select SQL Server as the data source, configure the connection to your Connect AI instance, and click "Create data source."
3. Select a table to visualize (or subait a custom SQL query for your data).
4. Click "Edit/Preview data" to customize the data set.
5. Select "Import to SPICE for quicker analytics" and click "Visualize."
6. Select fields to visualize and a visual type.

Schedule Refreshes for SPICE Data Sets

QuickSight users can schedule refreshes for data sets that are imported into SPICE, ensuring that data being analyzed is only as old as the most recent refresh.

1. Navigate to the QuickSight home page.
2. Click "Manage data."
3. Select the data set you wish to refresh.
4. Click "Schedule refresh."
5. Click Create, configure the refresh settings (time zone, repeat frequency, and starting datetime), and click Create.

Live Access to Cvent Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to Cvent data from your Amazon QuickSight dashboard. You can create new visualizations, build interactive dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining live access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Amazon QuickSight, refer to our Connect AI page.