Build Salesforce Pardot-Connected Dashboards in Redash

Redash lets you connect and query your data sources, build dashboards to visualize data and share them with your company. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Salesforce Pardot data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Salesforce Pardot and build visualizations from Salesforce Pardot data in Redash.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Salesforce Pardot, allowing you to easily build reports from live Salesforce Pardot data in Redash — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Redash 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 Salesforce Pardot, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Salesforce Pardot data.

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

   Salesforce Pardot supports connecting through API Version, Username, Password and User Key.

   • ApiVersion: The Salesforce Pardot API version which the provided account can access. Defaults to 4.
   • User: The Username of the Salesforce Pardot account.
   • Password: The Password of the Salesforce Pardot account.
   • UserKey: The unique User Key for the Salesforce Pardot account. This key does not expire.
   • IsDemoAccount (optional): Set to TRUE to connect to a demo account.

   Accessing the Pardot User Key

   The User Key of the current account may be accessed by going to Settings -> My Profile, under the API User Key row.

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 Salesforce Pardot data from Redash.

Visualize Salesforce Pardot Data in Redash

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Redash based on the virtual Salesforce Pardot database in Connect Server and building a simple visualization from the data.

Create a New Data Source

1. Log into Redash, click on your profile and click "Data Sources"
2. Click the " New Data Source" button
3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the Data Source Type
4. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Name: Name the data source (e.g. Salesforce Pardot (CData Connect))
   • Host: The full URL to your CData Connect instance (e.g. https://connect_server_url)
   • Port: The port of the CData Connect SQL Server endpoint (e.g. 1433)
   • User: A CData Connect user
   • Password: The password for the above user
   • Database name: The name of the virtual database for Salesforce Pardot (e.g. SalesforcePardot1)
   • Click the checkbox to Use SSQL
5. Click Create
6. Click the "Test Connection" button to ensure you have configured the connection properly

With the new Data Source created, we are ready to visualize our Salesforce Pardot data.

Create a Salesforce Pardot Data Visualization

1. Click Create -> New Query
2. Select the newly created Data Source (you can explore the data structure in the New Query wizard)
3. Write a SQL statement to retrieve the data, for example:
   SELECT Id, Email FROM Prospects WHERE ProspectAccountId = '703'
4. Click the "Execute" button to load Salesforce Pardot data into Redash via CData Connect
5. Use the Visualization Editor to create and analyze graphs from Salesforce Pardot data
6. You can schedule the query to refresh and update the visualization periodically

SQL Access to Salesforce Pardot Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to Salesforce Pardot data from Redash. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Redash, refer to our Connect Server page.