Create Epicor Kinetic-Connected Visualizations in Klipfolio

Klipfolio is an online dashboard platform for building real-time business dashboards for your team or your clients. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to Epicor Kinetic data for visualizations, reports, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Epicor Kinetic in Connect Server and build visualizations from Epicor Kinetic data in Klipfolio.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Epicor Kinetic, allowing you to easily build reports from live Epicor Kinetic data in Klipfolio — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Klipfolio generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Epicor Kinetic, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Epicor Kinetic data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Epicor Kinetic Data

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

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

   To successfully connect to your ERP instance, you must specify the following connection properties:

   • Url:the URL of the server hosting your ERP instance. For example, https://myserver.EpicorSaaS.com
   • ERPInstance: the name of your ERP instance.
   • User: the username of your account.
   • Password: the password of your account.
   • Service: the service you want to retrieve data from. For example, BaqSvc.

   In addition, you may also set the optional connection properties:

   • ApiKey: An optional key that may be required for connection to some services depending on your account configuration.
   • ApiVersion: Defaults to v1. May be set to v2 to use the newer Epicor API.
   • Company: Required if you set the ApiVersion to v2.
4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to Epicor Kinetic data from Klipfolio.

Connect to Epicor Kinetic in Klipfolio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Klipfolio to create a new Epicor Kinetic data source.

1. Open Klipfolio
2. Click in Data Feeds on the left panel to add a new data source.
3. Search for and select MS SQL as the Service.
4. Click "Create a custom MSSQL data source"
5. Configure the data source by setting the SQL Server connection properties:
   • Host: your instance (e.g., CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Port: 1433
   • Database: your database (e.g., epicorKinetic1)
   • Driver: MS SQL
   • Username: your Connect Server username
   • Password: your Connect Server password
   • SQL Query: any query to retrieve data (e.g., SELECT * FROM Customers)
   • Select the checkbox to "Include column headers"
6. Click "Get data" to preview the Epicor Kinetic data before building a data model.

Build a Data Model

After retrieving the data, click "Continue." In the new window, configure your data model.

1. Confirm that the model includes all columns you wish to work with
2. Name your model
3. (optional) Set the Description
4. Set "Header in row" to 1
5. Click the toggle to "Exclude data before row" and set the value to 2
6. Click "Save data feed"

Create a Klip

With the data modeled, we are ready to create a Klip (or visualization) of the data to be used in the Klipfolio platform for dashboards, reporting, and more.

1. Click "Add Metric"
2. Select a measure, placed on the y-axis, to track.
3. Select up to five dimensions/columns, for the x-axis, that you wish to visualize.
4. Click "Save metric"

SQL Access to Epicor Kinetic Data from Applications

Now you have a Klip built from live Epicor Kinetic data. You can add it to a new dashboard, share, and more. Easily create more data sources and new visualizations, produce reports, and more — all without replicating Epicor Kinetic data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect Server.