Create Reports from Harvest Data in Looker Studio

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Harvest data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Harvest and generating reports from Harvest data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect AI offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Harvest, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Harvest data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Harvest. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Harvest data.

Configure Harvest Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to Harvest from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Harvest data from Looker Studio, we start by creating and configuring a Harvest connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Harvest" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Harvest.

   Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Harvest Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Harvest.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Harvest (see below).

   Harvest API Profile Settings

   To authenticate to Harvest, you can use either Token authentication or the OAuth standard. Use Basic authentication to connect to your own data. Use OAuth to allow other users to connect to their data.

   Using Token Authentication

   To use Token Authentication, set the APIKey to your Harvest Personal Access Token in the ProfileSettings connection property. In addition to APIKey, set your AccountId in ProfileSettings to connect.

   Using OAuth Authentication

   First, register an OAuth2 application with Harvest. The application can be created from the "Developers" section of Harvest ID.

   After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

   • ProfileSettings: Set your AccountId in ProfileSettings.
   • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
   • OAuthClientId: Set this to the client ID that you specified in your app settings.
   • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret that you specified in your app settings.
   • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that you specified in your app settings.
   • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage how the driver obtains and refreshes the OAuthAccessToken.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Harvest Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Harvest data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Harvest Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Looker Studio to create a new Harvest data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect AI Connector.

2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account.
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance
4. In the CData Connect AI Connector in Looker Studio select Connections to import from the dropdown and click Next

5. Now select a Connection (e.g. API1) and click Next
6. Select a Table (e.g. Invoices) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue
7. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.

8. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
9. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.

Live Access to Harvest Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Harvest data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Harvest data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.