Integrate Google Sheets Data in the Pentaho Report Designer

The CData JDBC Driver for Google Sheets data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to Google Sheets data as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on Google Sheets data in Pentaho.

Connect and Create a Report

1. Copy the JAR file of the driver, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, to the \Report-Designer\lib\jdbc\ folder in the Pentaho directory.
2. Run the report-designer.bat file in the \Report-Designer\ folder to open the Report-Designer UI.

3. Create a new data source with the driver by clicking Data -> Add Data Source -> Advanced -> JDBC (Custom) and then creating a new Google Sheets connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

   • Custom Connection URL property: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:googlesheets: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     You can connect to a spreadsheet by providing authentication to Google and then setting the Spreadsheet connection property to the name or feed link of the spreadsheet. If you want to view a list of information about the spreadsheets in your Google Drive, execute a query to the Spreadsheets view after you authenticate.

     ClientLogin (username/password authentication) has been officially deprecated since April 20, 2012 and is now no longer available. Instead, use the OAuth 2.0 authentication standard. To access Google APIs on behalf on individual users, you can use the embedded credentials or you can register your own OAuth app.

     OAuth also enables you to use a service account to connect on behalf of users in a Google Apps domain. To authenticate with a service account, you will need to register an application to obtain the OAuth JWT values.

     See the Getting Started chapter in the help documentation to connect to Google Sheets from different types of accounts: Google accounts, Google Apps accounts, and accounts using two-step verification.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.googlesheets.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.

     Below is a typical JDBC URL:

     jdbc:googlesheets:Spreadsheet=MySheet;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH
   • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.googlesheets.GoogleSheetsDriver.
   • User Name: The username to authenticate with.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with.

Add Google Sheets Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with Google Sheets data.

1. Add the Google Sheets source to your report: Click Data -> Add Data Source -> JDBC and select the data source.

2. Configure the query. This article uses the one below:

   SELECT Shipcountry, SUM(OrderPrice) FROM Orders GROUP BY Shipcountry
3. Drag a chart onto your report and double-click it to edit the chart. Run the report to display the chart. You can use the results of this query to create a simple chart for the Orders table.
4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.