Create Okta-Connected Dashboards in Grafana

Grafana is an open-source platform that allows users to analyze, monitor, and visualize telemetry from various data sources. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate access to Okta data for business dashboards. This article outlines the process of connecting to Okta using Connect AI and creating a basic dashboard from Okta data within Grafana.

CData Connect AI offers a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Okta, enabling the creation of dashboards directly from live Okta data within Grafana, all without the need for data replication to a native database. As you build visualizations, Grafana generates SQL queries to gather data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Okta. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested Okta data.

Configure Okta Connectivity for Grafana

Connectivity to Okta from Grafana is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Okta data from Grafana, 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 Grafana.

Visualize Live Okta Data in Grafana

To establish a connection from Grafana to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

1. If you have not already done so, download and install Grafana for your operating system from the Grafana Website. Once installed, access Grafana at http://localhost:3000/.
2. Log in to Grafana with your username and password for Grafana. If this is your first time logging in, the username is admin and the password is admin.
3. On the navigation menu, click Sources > Add new connection. On this page, you can search for Microsoft SQL Server and select it as your data source.
4. Select Microsoft SQL Server and click Add new data source.
5. Enter a name for the new data source and then enter the following connection settings:
   • Host: tds.cdata.com:14333
   • Database: 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 previously generated.
   
6. Click Save & Test. A Database Connect OK message appears when you have a successful connection established.

Create a Dashboard

Once you create the data source for Okta, you can start building dashboards on Okta data. Start in the navigation menu and click Dashboards

1. On the Dashboards page, click + Create dashboard, then click + Add visualization.
2. This opens the Select data source window where you can select your created connection.
3. After selecting your connection, you can choose the tables and columns that you want to query for your visualization. Then press Run Query to run the generated query.
4. After running your query, the resulting data is populated above the query editor. Here you can select the visualization that you want to use to present your data on the dashboard panel.
5. When you have finished editing your panel, you can click Save dashboard to save the changes made to your Dashboard.

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect AI today!