Use the Connect Server to Access Drift Data in Microsoft Power Pivot

This article will explain how to use the Connect Server to provide Drift data as OData services and then consume the data in Microsoft Excel's Power Pivot business intelligence tool. Follow the steps below to retrieve Drift data in Power Pivot.

Connect to Drift from Power Pivot

To work with live Drift data in Power Pivot, we need to connect to Drift from Connect Server, provide user access to the new virtual database, and create OData endpoints for the Drift data.

Add a Connect Server User

Create a User to connect to Drift from Power Pivot through Connect Server.

1. Click Users -> Add
2. Configure a User
3. Click Save Changes and make note of the Authtoken for the new user

Connect to Drift from Connect Server

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open Connect Server and click Connections
2. Select "Drift" from Available Data Sources
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Drift.

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

   Drift API Profile Settings

   Drift uses OAuth-based authentication.

   You must first register an application here: https://dev.drift.com. Your app will be assigned a client ID and a client secret. Set these in your connection string via the OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret properties. More information on setting up an OAuth application can be found at https://devdocs.drift.com/docs/.

   After setting the following options in the ProfileSettings connection property, you are ready to connect:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
   • OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client Id that is specified in your app settings.
   • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to Client Secret that is specified in your app settings.
   • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.
   • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions (SELECT is all that is required for Reveal).

Add Drift OData Endpoints in Connect Server

After connecting to Drift, create OData Endpoints for the desired table(s).

1. Click OData -> Tables -> Add Tables
2. Select the Drift database
3. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple domains from an application, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in OData -> Settings.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Import Drift Tables in Power Pivot

Follow the steps below to import tables that can be refreshed on demand:

1. In Excel, click Data -> Get Data -> From Other Sources -> From OData Feed
2. Fill out the OData feed URL (e.g. http://localhost:8080/odata.rsc)
3. On the next screen, select Basic and configure the username and password. Password should be your auth token.

4. Select the tables that you would like to import into Excel

5. After selecting your table(s) and clicking Load, you should see the data appear in an Excel spreadsheet

6. Now, click the Power Pivot tab on the ribbon, and then select Add to Data Model. This can now work with your Drift data in Power Pivot.

Free Trial & More Information

If you are interested in connecting to your Drift data (or data from any of our other supported data sources) from Power Pivot, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect Server today! For more information on Connect Server and to see what other data sources we support, refer to our CData Connect page.