Create Apps from Certinia Data in Qlik Sense Cloud

Qlik Sense Cloud allows you to create and share data visualizations and interact with information in new ways. The CData Connect Server creates a virtual database for Certinia and can be used to generate an OData API (natively consumable in Qlik Sense Cloud) for Certinia. By pairing Qlik Sense Cloud with the CData Connect Server, you get live connectivity to all of your SaaS and cloud-based Big Data and NoSQL sources — no need to migrate your data or write your integrations. Simply connect to Connect Server from Qlik Sense Cloud as you would any other REST service and get instant, live access to your Certinia data.

In this article, we walk through two connections:

1. Connecting to Certinia in Connect Server
2. Connecting to Connect Server from Qlik Sense Cloud to create a model and build a simple dashboard

Configure Connect Server to Connect to Certinia

To connect to Certinia data from Qlik Sense Cloud, you need to configure Certinia access from your Connect Server instance. This means creating a user, connecting to Certinia, adding OData endpoints, and (optionally) configuring CORS.

Add a Connect Server User

Create a Connect Server User to connect to Certinia from Qlik Sense Cloud.

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

Connect to Certinia 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 "Certinia" from Available Data Sources
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Certinia.
   
   

   There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Certinia: login credentials, SSO, and OAuth.

   Authenticating with a Login and Token

   Set the User and Password to your login credentials. Additionally, set the SecurityToken. By default, the SecurityToken is required, but you can make it optional by allowing a range of trusted IP addresses.

   To disable the security token:

   1. Log in to Certinia and enter "Network Access" in the Quick Find box in the setup section.
   2. Add your IP address to the list of trusted IP addresses.

   To obtain the security token:

   1. Open the personal information page on certinia.com.
   2. Click the link to reset your security token. The token will be emailed to you.
   3. Specify the security token in the SecurityToken connection property or append it to the Password.

   Authenticating with OAuth

   If you do not have access to the user name and password or do not want to require them, use the OAuth user consent flow. See the OAuth section in the Help for an authentication guide.

   Connecting to Certinia Sandbox Accounts

   Set UseSandbox to true (false by default) to use a Certinia sandbox account. Ensure that you specify a sandbox user name in User.

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 Certinia OData Endpoints in Connect Server

After connecting to Certinia, create OData Endpoint for the desired table(s).

1. Click OData -> Tables -> Add Tables
2. Select the Certinia 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 such as Ajax, 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.

Create a Qlik Sense App from Certinia Data

With the connection to Certinia and OData endpoints created, we are ready to add Certinia data to a Qlik Sense app for visualizations, analytics, reporting, and more.

Create a New App and Upload Data

1. Log into your Qlik Sense instance and click the button to create a new app
2. Name and configure the new app and click "Create"
3. In the workspace, click to open the new app
4. Click to add data from files and other sources
5. Select the REST connector and set the configuration properties. For the most part, you will use the default values, with the following exceptions:
   • URL: Set this to the API endpoint for your Certinia table, using the @CSV URL parameter to ensure a CSV response (i.e. CONNECT_SERVER_URL/api.rsc/Certinia_Account?@CSV)
   • Authentication Schema: Set this to "Basic"
   • User Name: Set this to the user name you configured above
   • Password: Set this to the Authtoken for the above user
6. Click "Create" to query Connect Server for the Certinia data
7. Check "CSV has header" and under "Tables," select "CSV_source"
8. Select columns and click "Add data"

Generate Insights or Customize Your App

With the data loaded into Qlik Sense, you are ready to begin discovering insights. Click "Generate insights" to let Qlik analyze your data. Otherwise, you can build custom visualizations, reports, and dashboards based on your Certinia data.

More Information & Free Trial

Now, you have created a simple but powerful dashboard from live Certinia data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Certinia (and more than 200 other data sources), visit the Connect Server page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Certinia data in Qlik Sense Cloud.