Create Reports with PingOne Data in SAP Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports has many options for offloading data processing to remote data; this enables real-time reporting. The CData ODBC Driver for PingOne brings this capability to Crystal Reports. This article shows how to create a report on PingOne data that refreshes when you run the report.

Refer to the given table for the tools and versions used for this article:

Connect to PingOne Data

If you have not already, specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

To connect to PingOne, configure these properties:

• Region: The region where the data for your PingOne organization is being hosted.
• AuthScheme: The type of authentication to use when connecting to PingOne.
• Either WorkerAppEnvironmentId (required when using the default PingOne domain) or AuthorizationServerURL, configured as described below.

Configuring WorkerAppEnvironmentId

WorkerAppEnvironmentId is the ID of the PingOne environment in which your Worker application resides. This parameter is used only when the environment is using the default PingOne domain (auth.pingone). It is configured after you have created the custom OAuth application you will use to authenticate to PingOne, as described in Creating a Custom OAuth Application in the Help documentation.

First, find the value for this property:

1. From the home page of your PingOne organization, move to the navigation sidebar and click Environments.
2. Find the environment in which you have created your custom OAuth/Worker application (usually Administrators), and click Manage Environment. The environment's home page displays.
3. In the environment's home page navigation sidebar, click Applications.
4. Find your OAuth or Worker application details in the list.
5. Copy the value in the Environment ID field. It should look similar to:
   WorkerAppEnvironmentId='11e96fc7-aa4d-4a60-8196-9acf91424eca'

Now set WorkerAppEnvironmentId to the value of the Environment ID field.

Configuring AuthorizationServerURL

AuthorizationServerURL is the base URL of the PingOne authorization server for the environment where your application is located. This property is only used when you have set up a custom domain for the environment, as described in the PingOne platform API documentation. See Custom Domains.

Authenticating to PingOne with OAuth

PingOne supports both OAuth and OAuthClient authentication. In addition to performing the configuration steps described above, there are two more steps to complete to support OAuth or OAuthCliet authentication:

• Create and configure a custom OAuth application, as described in Creating a Custom OAuth Application in the Help documentation.
• To ensure that the driver can access the entities in Data Model, confirm that you have configured the correct roles for the admin user/worker application you will be using, as described in Administrator Roles in the Help documentation.
• Set the appropriate properties for the authscheme and authflow of your choice, as described in the following subsections.

OAuth (Authorization Code grant)

Set AuthScheme to OAuth.

Desktop Applications

Get and Refresh the OAuth Access Token

After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

• InitiateOAuth: GETANDREFRESH. To avoid the need to repeat the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken each time you connect, use InitiateOAuth.
• OAuthClientId: The Client ID you obtained when you created your custom OAuth application.
• OAuthClientSecret: The Client Secret you obtained when you created your custom OAuth application.
• CallbackURL: The redirect URI you defined when you registered your custom OAuth application. For example: https://localhost:3333

When you connect, the driver opens PingOne's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. The driver then completes the OAuth process:

1. The driver obtains an access token from PingOne and uses it to request data.
2. The OAuth values are saved in the location specified in OAuthSettingsLocation, to be persisted across connections.

The driver refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.

For other OAuth methods, including Web Applications, Headless Machines, or Client Credentials Grant, refer to the Help documentation.

When configuring the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Design a Report in SAP Crystal Reports

Follow the procedure below to use the SAP Crystal Reports tool to create the PingOne connection and Design a Report.

1. File -> New -> Standard Report.
2. Expand the ODBC (RDO) node under Create New Connection and double-click on "Make a New Connection". Select CData PingOne Sys or any other source to prepare the report. Click on NEXT and FINISH.
3. Configure the data source by selecting the tables needed in the report and clicking NEXT.
4. You can also link tables from the PingOne data in SAP Crystal Reports. Click on NEXT after adding the links between tables.
5. After the tables are selected, select the fields you want displayed in the report from the selected table, followed by NEXT.
6. Select the "Group By" field to group the information on the report.
7. Sort the groups based on summarised totals and click on NEXT.

Create a Chart

After selecting a column to group by, the Standard Report Creation Wizard presents the option to create a chart. Follow the steps below to create a chart aggregating the Id column's values.

1. In the Standard Report Creation Wizard, select the Bar Chart option and select the column you grouped by in the "On change of" menu.
2. In the Show Summary menu, select the summary you created.
3. Select filters and a template, as needed, to finish the wizard.

Select a template for the report to preview the finished report and view the chart populated with your data.

The Final Report

You can now see that the report contains all the fields specified.

Working with Remote Data

To ensure that you see updates to data, click File and clear the "Save Data with Report" option. As you interact with the report, for example, drilling down to hidden details, Crystal Reports executes SQL queries to retrieve the data needed to display the report. To reload data you have already retrieved, refresh or rerun the report.

You can offload processing onto the driver by hiding details elements and enabling server-side grouping. To do this, you need to select a column to group by in the report creation wizard.

1. Click File -> Report Options and select the "Perform Grouping On Server" option.
2. Click Report -> Section Expert and select the Details section of your report. Select the "Hide (Drill-Down OK)" option.

When you preview your report with the hidden details, Crystal Reports executes a GROUP BY query. When you double-click a column in the chart to drill down to details, Crystal Reports executes a SELECT WHERE query that decreases load times by retrieving only the data needed.

At this point, you have created a SAP Crystal report built on top of live PingOne data using SAP Crystal Reports and CData ODBC driver. Learn more about the CData ODBC Driver for PingOne and download a free trial from the CData ODBC Driver for PingOne page. Let our Support Team know if you have any questions.