Build QuickBooks Visualizations in Tableau Cloud

Tableau Cloud is an analytics platform fully hosted in the cloud. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to QuickBooks data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to QuickBooks and build visualizations from QuickBooks data in Tableau Cloud.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for QuickBooks, allowing you to easily build visualizations from live QuickBooks data in Tableau Cloud without installing connectors or publishing worksheets and data sources from Tableau Desktop. As you build visualizations, Tableau Cloud 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 QuickBooks, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return QuickBooks data.

Getting Started

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Configure QuickBooks Connectivity for Tableau Cloud

Connectivity to QuickBooks from Tableau Cloud is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with QuickBooks data from Tableau Cloud, we start by creating and configuring a QuickBooks connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "QuickBooks" from the Add Connection panel
4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add QuickBooks Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your 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.

Configure QuickBooks Endpoints for Salesforce Connect

After connecting to QuickBooks, create a workspace and virtual dataset for your desired table(s).

1. Navigate to the Virtual Datasets page and click Add to create a new Workspace (or select an existing workspace).
2. Click Add to add new assets to the Workspace.
3. Select the QuickBooks connection (e.g. QuickBooks1) and click Next.
4. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Confirm.
5. Make note of the OData Service URL for your workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}

With the connection and Workspace configured, you are ready to connect to QuickBooks data from Tableau Cloud.

Visualize Live QuickBooks Data in Tableau Cloud

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Tableau Cloud based on the virtual QuickBooks database in Connect Cloud and building a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Tableau Cloud, select a account, and create a new workbook.
2. In the new workbook, choose the Microsoft SQL Server Connector from the data wizard and fill in the values for your Connect Cloud instance.
   • Set Server to the OData URL for your Workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/MyWorkspace
   • Set Authentication to Username and Password
   • Set Username to your Connect Cloud username (e.g. [email protected])
   • Set Password to a PAT for the above user
   
3. Select your newly created database and the table(s) you wish to visualize (defining relationships for JOINad tables as needed).

4. Select Dimensions and Measures and configure your visualization.

Real-Time Access to QuickBooks Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live QuickBooks data from your Tableau Cloud workbook. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more, with no need to publish data sources and workbooks from Tableau Desktop. For more information on gaining live access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Tableau Cloud, refer to our Connect Cloud page.