Visualize Placid Data in TIBCO Spotfire through ODBC

This article walks you through using the CData ODBC Driver for Placid in TIBCO Spotfire. You will use the data import wizard to connect to a DSN (data source name) for Salesforce and build on the sample visualizations to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Placid as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first 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.

Placid uses API Key authentication to control access to the API. API tokens are project-specific and can be obtained from your project settings on placid.app.

Using API Key Authentication

To obtain your API key, log in to placid.app, navigate to your project, open the project settings, and generate an API token from the API section. Note that each API token is scoped to a specific project.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Placid project API token.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\Placid.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_project_api_token';

When you configure 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.

Create Visualizations of Placid Tables

Follow the steps below to connect to the DSN and create real-time data visualizations:

1. Click Data -> Add Data ...
2. Click Other -> Load data with ODBC, OLE DB, or ADO.NET data provider.
3. In the Data Source Type menu, select ODBC Data Provider and click Configure.
4. Select the DSN.
5. Select the tables that you want to add to the dashboard. This example uses Collections. You can also specify an SQL query. The driver supports the standard SQL syntax.
6. If you want to work with the live data, click the Keep Data Table External option. This option enables your dashboards to reflect changes to the data in real time.

   If you want to load the data into memory and process the data locally, click the Import Data Table option. This option is better for offline use or if a slow network connection is making your dashboard less interactive.

7. After adding tables, the Recommended Visualizations wizard is displayed. When you select a table, Spotfire uses the column data types to detect number, time, and category columns. This example uses in the Numbers section and in the Categories section.

After adding several visualizations in the Recommended Visualizations wizard, you can make other modifications to the dashboard. For example, you can zoom in on high probability opportunities by applying a filter on the page. To add a filter, click the Filter button. The available filters for each query are displayed in the Filters pane.