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Analyze Quickbase Data in Looker
Use CData Connect Cloud to connect to Quickbase Data from Looker and build custom apps using live Quickbase data.
Looker is a business intelligence and big data analytics platform that helps you explore, analyze and share real-time business analytics. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Quickbase data for business applications. This article shows how to connect to Quickbase in Connect Cloud and then connect to Quickbase data in Looker.
CData Connect Cloud provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Quickbase, allowing you to build reports from live Quickbase data in Looker — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you create applications to work with data, Looker generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Quickbase, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Quickbase data.
Configure Quickbase Connectivity for Looker
Connectivity to Quickbase from Looker is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Quickbase data from Looker, we start by creating and configuring a Quickbase connection.
- Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
- Select "Quickbase" from the Add Connection panel
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Quickbase.
User Authentication Method
To authenticate with user credentials, specify the following connection properties:
- Set the User and Password.
- If your application requires an ApplicationToken;, you must provide it otherwise an error will be thrown. You can find the ApplicationToken under SpecificApp > Settings > App management > App properties > Advanced settings > Security options > Manage Application Token.
User Token Authentication
To authenticate with a user token, specify the following connection properties:
- Set UserToken and you are ready to connect. You can find the UserToken under Quick Base > My Preferences > My User Information > Manage User Tokens.
- Click Create & Test
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Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Quickbase Connection page and update the User-based permissions.
Add a Personal Access Token
When connecting to Connect Cloud 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 Cloud. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.
- Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
- On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
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Give the PAT a name and click Create.
- 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 Quickbase data from Looker.
Connect to Quickbase in Looker
The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Looker to create a new Quickbase data source.
- Log-in to Looker
- In the navigation pane, select Admin.
- Under the Database category, select Connections.
- On the Connections page, click Add Connection.
- Enter the connection settings:
- Name: the name for the connection in models.
- Dialect: select Microsoft SQL Server 2017+.
- SSH Server: leave this disabled.
- Remote Host:Port: enter tds.cdata.com in the first field and 14333 in the second field.
- Database: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, QuickBooksOnline1).
- Username: enter your CData Connect Cloud username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect Cloud interface. For example, [email protected]
- Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page
- At the bottom of the page, click Test These Settings to ensure that you can connect to CData Connect Cloud.
- Click Add Connection to create the connection and return to the
Connections page.
Your connection is now available for use in Looker. To connect to additional data sources from your CData Connect Cloud account, repeat the setup steps above, changing the value for Database for each data source.
Creating A Looker Visualization From The SQL Runner and Explore Features
To create a visualization in Looker using the SQL Runner, follow these steps:
- In the Looker interface, select Develop -> SQL Runner from the left navigation pane.
- On the SQL Runner interface, select the connection you made in the previous steps.
- Now, click the gear symbol next to a table and then select Explore Table.
- Next, on the left menu, select fields from the table and click Run. You can now expand the Visualization accordion, and see a bar chart, by default.
We have now created a visualization of Quickbase data in Looker using CData Connect Cloud!
Get CData Connect Cloud
To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect Cloud today!
