Visualize HCL Domino Data in TIBCO Spotfire through ODBC

This article walks you through using the CData ODBC Driver for HCL Domino in TIBCO Spotfire. You will use the data import wizard to connect to a DSN (data source name) for Salesforce and build on the sample visualizations to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to HCL Domino as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Prerequisites

The connector requires the Proton component to be installed. Normally, Proton is distributed as part of the AppDev pack. See the HCL documentation for instructions on acquiring and installing Proton or the AppDev pack.

Once the Proton service is installed and running, you will also need to create a user account and download its Internet certificate. This certificate can be used to set the connector certificate connection properties.

Authenticating to Domino

• Server: The name or IP address of the server running Domino with the Proton service.
• Port: The port number that the Proton service is listening on.
• Database: The name of the database file, including the .nsf extension.
• SSLClientCertType: This must match the format of the certificate file. Typically this will be either PEMKEY_FILE for .pem certificates or PFXFILE for .pfx certificates.
• SSLClientCert: The path to the certificate file.
• SSLServerCert: This can be set to (*) if you trust the server. This is usually the case, but if you want to perform SSL validation, you may provide a certificate or thumbprint instead. See the documentation for SSLServerCert for details.

Additional Server Configuration

The connector supports querying Domino views if any are defined. Before views can be queried by the connector they must be registered with the design catalog.

Please refer to the Catalog Administration section of the AppDev pack documentation for details on how to do this.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Create Visualizations of HCL Domino Tables

Follow the steps below to connect to the DSN and create real-time data visualizations:

1. Click Data -> Add Data ...
2. Click Other -> Load data with ODBC, OLE DB, or ADO.NET data provider.
3. In the Data Source Type menu, select ODBC Data Provider and click Configure.
4. Select the DSN.
5. Select the tables that you want to add to the dashboard. This example uses ByName. You can also specify an SQL query. The driver supports the standard SQL syntax.
6. If you want to work with the live data, click the Keep Data Table External option. This option enables your dashboards to reflect changes to the data in real time.

   If you want to load the data into memory and process the data locally, click the Import Data Table option. This option is better for offline use or if a slow network connection is making your dashboard less interactive.

7. After adding tables, the Recommended Visualizations wizard is displayed. When you select a table, Spotfire uses the column data types to detect number, time, and category columns. This example uses Address in the Numbers section and Name in the Categories section.

After adding several visualizations in the Recommended Visualizations wizard, you can make other modifications to the dashboard. For example, you can zoom in on high probability opportunities by applying a filter on the page. To add a filter, click the Filter button. The available filters for each query are displayed in the Filters pane.