Create Reports from Sage 300 Data in Looker Studio

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Sage 300 data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Sage 300 and generating reports from Sage 300 data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect AI offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Sage 300, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Sage 300 data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Sage 300. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Sage 300 data.

Configure Sage 300 Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to Sage 300 from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Sage 300 data from Looker Studio, we start by creating and configuring a Sage 300 connection.

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

2. Select "Sage 300" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Sage 300.

   Sage 300 requires some initial setup in order to communicate over the Sage 300 Web API.

   • Set up the security groups for the Sage 300 user. Give the Sage 300 user access to the option under Security Groups (per each module required).
   • Edit both web.config files in the /Online/Web and /Online/WebApi folders; change the key AllowWebApiAccessForAdmin to true. Restart the webAPI app-pool for the settings to take.
   • Once the user access is configured, click https://server/Sage300WebApi/ to ensure access to the web API.

   Authenticate to Sage 300 using Basic authentication.

   Connect Using Basic Authentication

   You must provide values for the following properties to successfully authenticate to Sage 300. Note that the provider reuses the session opened by Sage 300 using cookies. This means that your credentials are used only on the first request to open the session. After that, cookies returned from Sage 300 are used for authentication.

   • Url: Set this to the url of the server hosting Sage 300. Construct a URL for the Sage 300 Web API as follows: {protocol}://{host-application-path}/v{version}/{tenant}/ For example, http://localhost/Sage300WebApi/v1.0/-/.
   • User: Set this to the username of your account.
   • Password: Set this to the password of your account.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Sage 300 Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Sage 300 data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Sage 300 Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Looker Studio to create a new Sage 300 data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect AI Connector.

2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account.
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance
4. In the CData Connect AI Connector in Looker Studio select Connections to import from the dropdown and click Next

5. Now select a Connection (e.g. Sage3001) and click Next
6. Select a Table (e.g. OEInvoices) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue
7. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.

8. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
9. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.

Live Access to Sage 300 Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Sage 300 data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Sage 300 data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.