Create Dashboards and Visualize Live Okta Data in Geckoboard

Geckoboard is a business intelligence tool that simplifies the visualization of key performance indicators (KPIs) by creating live dashboards. It allows teams to consolidate data from various sources - such as Salesforce, Snowflake, Google Analytics, and spreadsheets - and display it in a visually engaging and easy-to-understand format. Designed for simplicity and clarity, Geckoboard helps businesses monitor performance, track goals, and make data-driven decisions.

When used with CData Connect AI, you gain instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Okta data from Geckoboard for dashboards, monitoring, visualizations, and more. This article explains how to connect to Okta and create visualizations using Okta data in Geckoboard.

CData Connect AI offers a seamless SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Okta, enabling you to effortlessly create dashboards and visualizations using live Okta data in Geckoboard. While building visualizations, Geckoboard requires SQL queries to retrieve the necessary data. With built-in optimized data processing, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (such as filters and JOINs) directly to Okta, utilizing server-side processing for fast and efficient data retrieval of Okta data.

Configure Okta connectivity for Geckoboard

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

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

2. Select "Okta" from the Add Connection panel

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

   To connect to Okta, set the Domain connection string property to your Okta domain.

   You will use OAuth to authenticate with Okta, so you need to create a custom OAuth application.

   Creating a Custom OAuth Application

   From your Okta account:

   1. Sign in to your Okta developer edition organization with your administrator account.
   2. In the Admin Console, go to Applications > Applications.
   3. Click Create App Integration.
   4. For the Sign-in method, select OIDC - OpenID Connect.
   5. For Application type, choose Web Application.
   6. Enter a name for your custom application.
   7. Set the Grant Type to Authorization Code. If you want the token to be automatically refreshed, also check Refresh Token.
   8. Set the callback URL:
      • For desktop applications and headless machines, use http://localhost:33333 or another port number of your choice. The URI you set here becomes the CallbackURL property.
      • For web applications, set the callback URL to a trusted redirect URL. This URL is the web location the user returns to with the token that verifies that your application has been granted access.
   9. In the Assignments section, either select Limit access to selected groups and add a group, or skip group assignment for now.
   10. Save the OAuth application.
   11. The application's Client Id and Client Secret are displayed on the application's General tab. Record these for future use. You will use the Client Id to set the OAuthClientId and the Client Secret to set the OAuthClientSecret.
   12. Check the Assignments tab to confirm that all users who must access the application are assigned to the application.
   13. On the Okta API Scopes tab, select the scopes you wish to grant to the OAuth application. These scopes determine the data that the app has permission to read, so a scope for a particular view must be granted for the driver to have permission to query that view. To confirm the scopes required for each view, see the view-specific pages in Data Model < Views in the Help documentation.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Okta Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Okta data from Geckoboard.

Connect live Okta data in Geckoboard

Follow these steps to establish a connection from Geckoboard to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API.

1. Log into Geckoboard
2. Add a custom dashboard name and click Add widget
3. Search for "Databases" in the Connect your data search bar
4. Select SQL Server as the Database type
5. Fill in the connection details:
   • Connection name: enter a name for the connection to CData Connect AI
   • Host: enter the Virtual SQL Server endpoint: tds.cdata.com
   • Port: : enter 14333
   • Database name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect AI data source you want to connect to (for example, Okta1)
   • Username: enter your CData Connect AI username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect AI interface. For example, [email protected]
   • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page
   
6. Click Connect

After successfully configuring your connection, you can query and visualize your Okta data.

Visualize live Okta data in Geckoboard

To visualize live Okta data in Geckoboard, follow these steps:

1. Write an SQL query to select the specific Okta data needed for visualization in Paste your SQL query compiler screen

Depending on your use case, you can also generate the desired SQL query using the Data Copilot or Query Builder features of CData Connect AI


2. Choose the visualization type (Line Chart, Bar Chart, or Column Chart) that best suits your business requirements
3. The selected chart will be displayed on Geckoboard
4. Click the menu (three dots in the top-right corner of the graph) and select Edit to modify the SQL query or set a refresh interval for the chart

Live access to Okta data from cloud applications

At this stage, you have established a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Okta data in Geckoboard. This enables you to create dashboards to monitor and visualize your data seamlessly.

For more details on accessing live data from over 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources through cloud applications like Geckoboard, visit our Connect AI page.