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

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

Connect to Facebook from Power Pivot

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

Add a Connect Server User

Create a User to connect to Facebook 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 Facebook 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 "Facebook" from Available Data Sources
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Facebook.

   Most tables require user authentication as well as application authentication. Facebook uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate to Facebook, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL or you can obtain your own by registering an app with Facebook.

   See the Getting Started chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

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 Facebook OData Endpoints in Connect Server

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

1. Click OData -> Tables -> Add Tables
2. Select the Facebook 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 Facebook 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 Facebook data in Power Pivot.

Free Trial & More Information

If you are interested in connecting to your Facebook 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.