Use the CData ODBC Driver for Sage 300 in MicroStrategy Desktop

MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When paired with the CData ODBC Driver for Sage 300, you gain database-like access to live Sage 300 data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through adding Sage 300 as a data source in MicroStrategy Desktop and creating a simple visualization of Sage 300 data.

The CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Sage 300 data in MicroStrategy due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from MicroStrategy to Sage 300, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Sage 300 and utilizes the embedded SQL Engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze Sage 300 data using native MicroStrategy data types.

Connect to Sage 300 as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to Sage 300 follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.

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.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Windows

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for Sage 300 in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Connect to and Visualize Sage 300 Data using MicroStrategy Desktop

In addition to connecting Sage 300 in MicroStrategy enterprise products, you can connect to Sage 300 in MicroStrategy Desktop. Follow the steps below to add Sage 300 data as a dataset and create visualizations and reports of Sage 300 data.

1. Open MicroStrategy Desktop and create a new dossier.
2. In the datasets panel, click New Data, select Databases, and select Type a Query as the Import Option.
3. Add a new data source and choose DSN data sources.
4. Choose the DSN you previously configured (likely CData Sage300 Sys) and select Generic DBMS in the Version menu.
5. Set the User and Password properties for the DSN (or use placeholder values) and name the data source.
6. Select the new database instance to view the tables. You may need to manually click the search icon in the Available Tables section to see the tables.
7. Create a SQL query for the Sage 300 data (see below) and click Execute SQL to test the query. SELECT * FROM OEInvoices NOTE: Since we create a live connection, we can execute a SELECT * query and utilize the filtering and aggregation features native to the MicroStrategy products.
8. Click Finish and choose to connect live.
9. Choose a visualization, choose fields to display (data types are discovered automatically through dynamic metadata discovery) and apply any filters to create a new visualization of Sage 300 data. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to Sage 300, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed client-side by the CData SQL Engine embedded in the driver.
10. Once you are finished configuring the dossier, click File -> Save.

Using the CData ODBC Driver for Sage 300 in MicroStrategy Desktop, you can easily create robust visualizations and reports on Sage 300 data. Read our other articles on connecting to Sage 300 in MicroStrategy and connecting to Sage 300 in MicroStrategy Web for more examples.