Analyze Harvest Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live Harvest data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Harvest, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Harvest in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Harvest from API Server

CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection
2. Select "Harvest"
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.
   

Add Harvest Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Harvest, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Harvest data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource
2. Select the Harvest connection
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to Harvest from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the Harvest Connection and Resource(s)

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different 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 Settings -> Server.

• 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 Dashboard in Reveal

With the API Server configured, we can visualize Harvest data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize
6. Select fields and choose a chart type

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Harvest data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Harvest (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Harvest data in tools that consume OData APIs.