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Get the Report →Analyze Live Salesforce Data in SAS Viya
Use CData Connect Cloud to connect to Salesforce data from SAS Viya and deploy self-service analytics using live Salesforce data.
SAS Viya is an analytics platform that enhances data management, machine learning, and analytics, fostering efficient decision-making and insights. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Salesforce data for building predictive models, crafting stunning insights to make data-driven decisions, and more. This article shows how to connect to Connect Cloud from the SAS Viya cloud platform and integrate live Salesforce data into your self-service AI and analytics deployments.
CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for Salesforce, allowing you to easily integrate with live Salesforce data in SAS Viya — without replicating the data. CData Connect Cloud looks exactly like a SQL Server database to SAS Viya 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 return Salesforce data quickly.
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 SAS Viya
Connectivity to Salesforce from SAS Viya is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Salesforce data from SAS Viya, 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 SAS Viya.
Connecting to CData Connect Cloud from SAS Viya
The following steps detail the process of loading data from Salesforce into SAS Viya using the established connection in CData Connect Cloud.
- Download and install the CData Connect Cloud JDBC driver from the Client Tools section.
- Now, log in to SAS Viya and navigate to the Applications Menu at the top-left corner.
- Select Develop Code and Flows from the Analytics Life Cycle topic.
- Navigate to the Explorer tab and click on SAS Server on the left panel.
- Follow the steps to upload the JAR file of the CData Connect JDBC driver:
- Right-click on the "Home" directory.
- Click on Upload files.
- Place the JAR file in the specified location and note its file path.
- Once done, navigate to the Libraries tab and click on Create a new library connection (on the top left corner as shown below) for the CData Connect JDBC.
- Enter the library connection settings:
- Connection name: enter a name for your connection
- Library name (libref): enter a reference for your library
- Library type: choose "SAS/ACCESS to JDBC"
- Click on the Properties tab and set Library attributes to READONLY.
- Click the Connection Options tab and enter the following details:
- Hive JDBC driver's class name: cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver
- Java CLASSPATH: enter the file path to the JAR driver file (Refer to Step 5)
- Click on Test connection. If it succeeds, click on Save and connect.
- Click on to add a new tab and select SAS program.
- Fill in the code block below with your setup parameters:
- Libref: enter the library reference you defined in Step 9.
- ClassPath: enter the file path to the JAR driver file.
- Username: enter your CData Connect username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect interface. For example, [email protected].
- DefaultCatalog: enter the connection configured in CData Connect Cloud that you want to query.
- Password: enter the PAT you generated in the "Add a Personal Access Token" section.
libname [Libref] JDBC classpath=[ClassPath] class="cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver" URL="jdbc:Connect:AuthScheme=Basic;User=[Username];DefaultCatalog=[DefaultCatalog];DefaultSchema=dbo;Password=[Password]"; proc sql; SELECT * FROM [Libref].MyTable; quit;
- Click on Run. You can see the data load from CData Connect Cloud into SAS Viya.
Live Access to Salesforce Data from Cloud Applications
At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to Salesforce data from SAS Viya. You can build predictive models, craft insights to make data-driven decisions, and more — all without replicating Salesforce data.
Try Connect Cloud and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.