Query, Visualize, and Share live Printful Data in Redash

Redash is a collaboration tool that lets you query, visualize, and share your data. When paired with CData Connect AI, Redash gets access to live Printful data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Printful using Connect AI and work with live Printful data in Redash.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Printful, allowing you to query data from Printful without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Printful, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Printful data quickly.

Configure Printful Connectivity for Redash

Connectivity to Printful from Redash is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Printful data in Redash, we start by creating and configuring a Printful connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Printful" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Printful.

   Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Printful Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Printful.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Printful (see below).

   Printful API Profile Settings

   In order to authenticate to Printful, you'll need to provide your API Key. To get your API Key, first go to 'Settings' then 'Stores'. Select the Store you would like to connect to, then click the 'Add API Access' button to generate an API Key. Set the API Key in the ProfileSettings property to connect.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Printful Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Printful data from Redash.

Connect to Printful from Redash using Connect AI

To establish a connection from Redash to CData Connect AI using the Virtual SQL Server, follow these steps:

1. Log into Redash.
2. Click the settings widget on the top right.
3. Click New Data Source.
4. Select Microsoft SQL Server as the Data Source Type.
5. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Database Name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect AI data source you want to connect to (for example, Salesforce1).
   • Server: enter the virtual SQL Server host name (tds.cdata.com)
   • User: enter your CData Connect AI username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect AI interface. For example, [email protected].
   • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page.
   • Port: enter 14333
   
6. Click Create.
7. Click Test Connection to ensure that the connection is configured properly.

You can now work with live Printful data in Redash.

Get CData Connect AI

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