Use Dash to Build to Web Apps on Rebilly Data

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData API Driver for Python, the pandas module, and the Dash framework, you can build Rebilly-connected web applications for Rebilly data. This article shows how to connect to Rebilly with the CData Connector and use pandas and Dash to build a simple web app for visualizing Rebilly data.

With built-in, optimized data processing, the CData Python Connector offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Rebilly data in Python. When you issue complex SQL queries from Rebilly, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Rebilly and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Rebilly Data

Connecting to Rebilly data looks just like connecting to any relational data source. Create a connection string using the required connection properties. For this article, you will pass the connection string as a parameter to the create_engine function.

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

Rebilly API Profile Settings

Generate an API Key in Rebilly by navigating to Automations > Integrations > Custom Integrations > API Keys and selecting Secret as the type.

After installing the CData Rebilly Connector, follow the procedure below to install the other required modules and start accessing Rebilly through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the required modules and frameworks:

pip install pandas
pip install dash
pip install dash-daq

Visualize Rebilly Data in Python

Once the required modules and frameworks are installed, we are ready to build our web app. Code snippets follow, but the full source code is available at the end of the article.

First, be sure to import the modules (including the CData Connector) with the following:

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.api as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the connect function for the CData Rebilly Connector to create a connection for working with Rebilly data.

cnxn = mod.connect("Profile=C:\profiles\Rebilly.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';")

Execute SQL to Rebilly

Use the read_sql function from pandas to execute any SQL statement and store the result set in a DataFrame.

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM Attachments WHERE RelatedType = 'customer'", cnxn)

Configure the Web App

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, we can begin configuring the web app, assigning a name, stylesheet, and title.

app_name = 'dash-apiedataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'

Configure the Layout

The next step is to create a bar graph based on our Rebilly data and configure the app layout.

trace = go.Bar(x=df.Id, y=df.Name, name='Id')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='Rebilly Attachments Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

Set the App to Run

With the connection, app, and layout configured, we are ready to run the app. The last lines of Python code follow.

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)

Now, use Python to run the web app and a browser to view the Rebilly data.

python api-dash.py

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData API Driver for Python to start building Python apps with connectivity to Rebilly data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.api as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

cnxn = mod.connect("Profile=C:\profiles\Rebilly.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';")

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM Attachments WHERE RelatedType = 'customer'", cnxn)
app_name = 'dash-apidataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'
trace = go.Bar(x=df.Id, y=df.Name, name='Id')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='Rebilly Attachments Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)