How to integrate Metabase with Facebook Data

Metabase is an open source data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive dashboards. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, users can easily create visualizations and dashboards linked to live Facebook data. This article describes how to connect to Facebook and build a simple visualization using Facebook data.

CData Connect provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Facebook, allowing you to easily integrate with live Facebook data in Metabase — without replicating the data. Connect looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Metabase and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Facebook, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Facebook data.

Configure Facebook Connectivity for Metabase

Connectivity to Facebook from Metabase is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Facebook data from Metabase, we start by creating and configuring a Facebook connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Facebook" from the Add Connection panel
3. Facebook uses OAuth to authenticate. Click "Sign in" to authenticate with Facebook.
4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Facebook Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your 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, you are ready to connect to Facebook data from Metabase.

Connect to CData Connect from Metabase

After creating the virtual database, navigate to your Metabase instance. Use the SQL Server interface to connect to Connect Cloud.

1. Navigate to the administration screen (Settings -> Admin) and click "Add Database" from the "Databases" tab
2. Configure the connection to Connect Cloud and click "Save"
   • Database type: Select "SQL Server"
   • Name: Name the connection (e.g. "Facebook (Connect Cloud)")
   • Host: tds.cdata.com
   • Port: 14333
   • Database name: The name of the connection you just created (e.g. Facebook1)
   • Username: A Connect Cloud username (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Password: The PAT for the above Connect Cloud user
   • Click to Use a secure connection (SSL)

Execute Facebook Data with Metabase

Once you configure the connection to Connect Cloud, you can query Facebook and build visualizations.

1. Use the "Write SQL" tool to retrieve the Facebook data
2. Write a SQL query based on the Facebook connection in CData Connect Cloud, e.g.
   
   

   SELECT FromName, LikesCount FROM Posts

3. Navigate to the "Visualization" screen, choose a visualization, and configure the visualization

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have built a simple visualization from Facebook data in Metabase. You can continue to work with live Facebook data in Metabase just like you would any SQL Server database. For more information on creating a live connection to Facebook (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Facebook data in Metabase today.