Create Oracle-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 Oracle data for visualizations, reports, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Oracle in Connect Server and build visualizations from Oracle data in Klipfolio.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Oracle, allowing you to easily build reports from live Oracle 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 Oracle, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Oracle data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Oracle 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 "Oracle" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Oracle.

   To connect to Oracle, you'll first need to update your PATH variable and ensure it contains a folder location that includes the native DLLs. The native DLLs can be found in the lib folder inside the installation directory. Once you've done this, set the following to connect:

   • Port: The port used to connect to the server hosting the Oracle database.
   • User: The user Id provided for authentication with the Oracle database.
   • Password: The password provided for authentication with the Oracle database.
   • Service Name: The service name of the Oracle database.
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 Oracle data from Klipfolio.

Connect to Oracle in Klipfolio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Klipfolio to create a new Oracle 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., OracleOCI1)
   • Driver: MS SQL
   • Username: your Connect Server username
   • Password: your Connect Server password
   • SQL Query: any query to retrieve data (e.g., SELECT * FROM Customers)
   • Select the checkbox to "Include column headers"
6. Click "Get data" to preview the Oracle 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 Oracle Data from Applications

Now you have a Klip built from live Oracle 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 Oracle data.

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