Create Neo4J-Connected Visualizations in Klipfolio

Klipfolio is an online dashboard platform for building real-time business dashboards for your team or your clients. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to Neo4J data for visualizations, reports, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Neo4J in Connect Server and build visualizations from Neo4J data in Klipfolio.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Neo4J, allowing you to easily build reports from live Neo4J data in Klipfolio — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Klipfolio generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Neo4J, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Neo4J data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Neo4J Data

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

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "Neo4J" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Neo4J.

   To connect to Neo4j, set the following connection properties:

   • Server: The server hosting the Neo4j instance.
   • Port: The port on which the Neo4j service is running. The provider connects to port 7474 by default.
   • User: The username of the user using the Neo4j instance.
   • Password: The password of the user using the Neo4j instance.
4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to Neo4J data from Klipfolio.

Connect to Neo4J in Klipfolio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Klipfolio to create a new Neo4J data source.

1. Open Klipfolio
2. Click in Data Feeds on the left panel to add a new data source.
3. Search for and select MS SQL as the Service.
4. Click "Create a custom MSSQL data source"
5. Configure the data source by setting the SQL Server connection properties:
   • Host: your instance (e.g., CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Port: 1433
   • Database: your database (e.g., Neo4j1)
   • Driver: MS SQL
   • Username: your Connect Server username
   • Password: your Connect Server password
   • SQL Query: any query to retrieve data (e.g., SELECT * FROM ProductCategory)
   • Select the checkbox to "Include column headers"
6. Click "Get data" to preview the Neo4J data before building a data model.

Build a Data Model

After retrieving the data, click "Continue." In the new window, configure your data model.

1. Confirm that the model includes all columns you wish to work with
2. Name your model
3. (optional) Set the Description
4. Set "Header in row" to 1
5. Click the toggle to "Exclude data before row" and set the value to 2
6. Click "Save data feed"

Create a Klip

With the data modeled, we are ready to create a Klip (or visualization) of the data to be used in the Klipfolio platform for dashboards, reporting, and more.

1. Click "Add Metric"
2. Select a measure, placed on the y-axis, to track.
3. Select up to five dimensions/columns, for the x-axis, that you wish to visualize.
4. Click "Save metric"

SQL Access to Neo4J Data from Applications

Now you have a Klip built from live Neo4J data. You can add it to a new dashboard, share, and more. Easily create more data sources and new visualizations, produce reports, and more — all without replicating Neo4J data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect Server.