Feed Facebook Data into FineReport

The CData JDBC Driver for Facebook fully implements the JDBC standard and can provide Facebook data connectivity to a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and custom applications. In this article, we explain how to set Facebook data as JDBC data source in FineReport and view Facebook data as a table in the Report Designer.

Set Up a JDBC Data Source of Facebook Data

Follow the instruction below to set Facebook data as a FineReport database connection.

1. Copy the cdata.jdbc.facebook.jar file from the lib folder in the CData JDBC Driver for Facebook installation directory to the lib folder of the FineReport installation directory. You will need to copy the cdata.jdbc.facebook.lic file as well.
2. From the Server tab, select Define Data Connection, click to add a new connection, and click JDBC.

Next we will set up the data connection definition in the window.

1. Database: Others
2. JDBC Driver: cdata.jdbc.facebook.FacebookDriver
3. URL: A standard JDBC connection string using semicolon-separated connection properties.

   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.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

   For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Facebook JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.facebook.jar

   Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   When you configure the JDBC URL, 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.

   A typical JDBC URL is below:

   jdbc:facebook:
4. Click Connection pool attributes and set Test before getting connections to No.

Click Test connection to ensure you have configured the connection properly. With the connection to Facebook set up, you can use it as FineReport data source.

Select Facebook Data in the Report Designer.

1. Click to add a new template data set and select DB query to open the database query window.
2. Choose the JDBC connection that you created from the dropdown list.
3. The Facebook entities will appear as tables on the left pane.
4. Write a SELECT statement for the Facebook data tables and columns that you want to load.
5. Click preview and data is shown as table.

With these simple steps, Facebook can be used as a JDBC data source in FineReport.