Create PayPal Dashboards in Bold BI

Bold BI allows you to create, share, and collaborate on interactive BI dashboards. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to PayPal data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for PayPal and build reports from PayPal data in Bold BI.

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

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

   The provider surfaces tables from two PayPal APIs. The APIs use different authentication methods.

   • The REST API uses the OAuth standard. To authenticate to the REST API, you will need to set the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL properties.
   • The Classic API requires Signature API credentials. To authenticate to the Classic API, you will need to obtain an API username, password, and signature.

   See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to obtaining the necessary API credentials.

   To select the API you want to work with, you can set the Schema property to REST or SOAP. By default the SOAP schema will be used.

   For testing purposes you can set UseSandbox to true and use sandbox credentials.

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 PayPal data from Bold BI.

Visualize Live PayPal Data in Bold BI

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Bold BI to create a new PayPal data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into your Bold BI instance, click the data sources tab, create a new data source, and choose the SQL Server connector.
2. Choose the basic configuration and set the connection properties:
   • Name: Name your connection
   • Server name: Your Connect Server instance (CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Port: 1433
   • Username: Your Connect Server username
   • Password: Your Connect Server password
   • Mode: Choose Live to query PayPal on-demand or choose Extract to load the data into Bold BI
   • Database: Choose the database you created from the drop-down menu (paypaldb)
3. Click Connect
4. Select the table to visualize and drag it onto the workspace.
5. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
6. Click the gear icon for the visualization to configure the visualization properties and assign columns to the visualization.

SQL Access to PayPal Data from Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live PayPal data from your Bold BI workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating PayPal data.

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