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Use CData Connect Cloud to connect to live Salesforce data and create an interactive dashboard in Metabase from Salesforce data.
Metabase is an open source data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive dashboards. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, users can easily create visualizations and dashboards linked to live Salesforce data. This article describes how to connect to Salesforce and build a simple visualization using Salesforce data.
CData Connect provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Salesforce, allowing you to easily integrate with live Salesforce data in Metabase — without replicating the data. Connect looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Metabase and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Salesforce, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Salesforce data.
About Salesforce Data Integration
Accessing and integrating live data from Salesforce has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:
- Access to custom entities and fields means Salesforce users get access to all of Salesforce.
- Create atomic and batch update operations.
- Read, write, update, and delete their Salesforce data.
- Leverage the latest Salesforce features and functionalities with support for SOAP API versions 30.0.
- See improved performance based on SOQL support to push complex queries down to Salesforce servers.
- Use SQL stored procedures to perform actions like creating, retrieving, aborting, and deleting jobs, uploading and downloading attachments and documents, and more.
Users frequently integrate Salesforce data with:
- other ERPs, marketing automation, HCMs, and more.
- preferred data tools like Power BI, Tableau, Looker, and more.
- databases and data warehouses.
For more information on how CData solutions work with Salesforce, check out our Salesforce integration page.
Getting Started
Configure Salesforce Connectivity for Metabase
Connectivity to Salesforce from Metabase is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Salesforce data from Metabase, we start by creating and configuring a Salesforce connection.
- Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
- Select "Salesforce" from the Add Connection panel
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Salesforce.
There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Salesforce: Login, OAuth, and SSO. The Login method requires you to have the username, password, and security token of the user.
If you do not have access to the username and password or do not wish to require them, you can use OAuth authentication.
SSO (single sign-on) can be used by setting the SSOProperties, SSOLoginUrl, and TokenUrl connection properties, which allow you to authenticate to an identity provider. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for more information.
- Click Create & Test
- Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Salesforce 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.
- Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
- On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
- Give your 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, you are ready to connect to Salesforce data from Metabase.
Connect to CData Connect from Metabase
After creating the virtual database, navigate to your Metabase instance. Use the SQL Server interface to connect to Connect Cloud.
- Navigate to the administration screen (Settings -> Admin) and click "Add Database" from the "Databases" tab
- Configure the connection to Connect Cloud and click "Save"
- Database type: Select "SQL Server"
- Name: Name the connection (e.g. "Salesforce (Connect Cloud)")
- Host: tds.cdata.com
- Port: 14333
- Database name: The name of the connection you just created (e.g. Salesforce1)
- Username: A Connect Cloud username (e.g. [email protected])
- Password: The PAT for the above Connect Cloud user
- Click to Use a secure connection (SSL)
Execute Salesforce Data with Metabase
Once you configure the connection to Connect Cloud, you can query Salesforce and build visualizations.
- Use the "Write SQL" tool to retrieve the Salesforce data
- Write a SQL query based on the Salesforce connection in CData Connect Cloud, e.g.
SELECT Contact.Name, SUM(Account.AnnualRevenue) FROM Contact, Account GROUP BY Contact.Name
- Navigate to the "Visualization" screen, choose a visualization, and configure the visualization
More Information & Free Trial
At this point, you have built a simple visualization from Salesforce data in Metabase. You can continue to work with live Salesforce data in Metabase just like you would any SQL Server database. For more information on creating a live connection to Salesforce (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Salesforce data in Metabase today.