Use the CData ODBC Driver for Magento in SAS for Real-Time Reporting and Analytics

SAS is a software suite developed for advanced analytics, multivariate analysis, business intelligence, data management, and predictive analytics. When you pair SAS with the CData ODBC Driver for Magento, you gain database-like access to live Magento data from SAS, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. This articles walks through creating a library for Magento in SAS and creating a simple report based on real-time Magento data.

The CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Magento data in SAS due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from SAS to Magento, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Magento and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can easily visualize and analyze Magento data in SAS.

Connect to Magento as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to Magento follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments (the ODBC Driver for Magento must be installed on the machine hosting the SAS System).

Magento uses the OAuth 1 authentication standard. To connect to the Magento REST API, you will need to obtain values for the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties by registering an app with your Magento system. See the "Getting Started" section in the help documentation for a guide to obtaining the OAuth values and connecting.

You will also need to provide the URL to your Magento system. The URL depends on whether you are using the Magento REST API as a customer or administrator.

• Customer: To use Magento as a customer, make sure you have created a customer account in the Magento homepage. To do so, click Account -> Register. You can then set the URL connection property to the endpoint of your Magento system.

• Administrator: To access Magento as an administrator, set CustomAdminPath instead. This value can be obtained in the Advanced settings in the Admin menu, which can be accessed by selecting System -> Configuration -> Advanced -> Admin -> Admin Base URL.

  If the Use Custom Admin Path setting on this page is set to YES, the value is inside the Custom Admin Path text box; otherwise, set the CustomAdminPath connection property to the default value, which is "admin".

When you configure the DSN, 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.

Windows

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for Magento in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Create a Magento Library in SAS

Connect to Magento in SAS by adding a library based on the CData ODBC Driver for Magento.

1. Open SAS and expand Libraries in the Explorer pane.
2. In the Active Libraries window, right-click and select New.
3. Name your library (odbclib), select ODBC as the Engine, and click to Enable at startup (if you want the library to persist between sessions).
4. Set Data Source to the DSN you previously configured and click OK.

Create a View from a Magento Query

SAS natively supports querying data either using a low-code, point-and-click Query tool or programmatically with PROC SQL and a custom SQL query. When you create a View in SAS, the defining query is executed each time the view is queried. This means that you always query live Magento data for reports, charts, and analytics.

Using the Query Tool

1. In SAS, click Tools -> Query
2. Select the table sources and the table(s) you wish to pull data from. Then, click OK.
3. Select columns and right-click to add filtering, ordering, grouping, etc.
4. Create a local view to contain the query results by right-clicking the SQL Query Tool window, selecting Show Query, and clicking Create View. Name the View and click OK.

Using PROC SQL

1. In SAS, navigate to the Editor window.
2. Use PROC SQL to query the data and create a local view.
   NOTE: This procedure creates a view in the Work library. You can optionally specify a library in the create view statement.

   proc sql;
     create view products_view as
     select 
       name, 
       price 
     from 
       odbclib.products 
     where 
       Style = 'High Tech';
   quit;
   

3. Click Run -> Submit to execute the query and create a local view.

Report On or Visualize Magento Data in SAS

With a local view created, you can report, visualize, or otherwise analyze Magento data using the powerful SAS features. Print a simple report using PROC PRINT and create a basic graph based on the data using PROC GCHART.

Print an HTML Report

1. In SAS, navigate to the Editor window.
2. Use PROC PRINT to print an HTML report for the Magento Products data.

   proc print data=products;
     title "Magento Products Data";
   run;
   

Print a Chart

1. In SAS, navigate to the Editor window.
2. Use PROC GCHART to create a chart for the Products data.

   proc gchart data=products;
     pie name / sumvar=price
         value=arrow
         percent=arrow
         noheading
         percent=inside plabel=(height=12pt)
         slice=inside value=none
         name='ProductsChart';
   run;