Create SAP Ariba Source-Connected Visualizations in Klipfolio

Klipfolio is an online dashboard platform for building real-time business dashboards for your team or your clients. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to SAP Ariba Source data for visualizations, reports, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for SAP Ariba Source in Connect Server and build visualizations from SAP Ariba Source data in Klipfolio.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for SAP Ariba Source, allowing you to easily build reports from live SAP Ariba Source data in Klipfolio — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Klipfolio generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to SAP Ariba Source, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested SAP Ariba Source data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for SAP Ariba Source Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "SAP Ariba Source" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAP Ariba Source.

   In order to connect with SAP Ariba Source, set the following:

   • API: Specify which API you would like the provider to retrieve SAP Ariba data from. Select the Supplier, Sourcing Project Management, or Contract API based on your business role (possible values are SupplierDataAPIWithPaginationV4, SourcingProjectManagementAPIV2, or ContractAPIV1).
   • DataCenter: The data center where your account's data is hosted.
   • Realm: The name of the site you want to access.
   • Environment: Indicate whether you are connecting to a test or production environment (possible values are TEST or PRODUCTION).

   If you are connecting to the Supplier Data API or the Contract API, additionally set the following:

   • User: Id of the user on whose behalf API calls are invoked.
   • PasswordAdapter: The password associated with the authenticating User.

   If you're connecting to the Supplier API, set ProjectId to the Id of the sourcing project you want to retrieve data from.

   Authenticating with OAuth

   After setting connection properties, you need to configure OAuth connectivity to authenticate.

   • Set AuthScheme to OAuthClient.
   • Register an application with the service to obtain the APIKey, OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret.

     For more information on creating an OAuth application, refer to the Help documentation.

   Automatic OAuth

   After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

   APIKey: The Application key in your app settings. OAuthClientId: The OAuth Client Id in your app settings. OAuthClientSecret: The OAuth Secret in your app settings.

   When you connect, the provider automatically completes the OAuth process:

   1. The provider obtains an access token from SAP Ariba and uses it to request data.
   2. The provider refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.
   3. The OAuth values are saved in memory relative to the location specified in OAuthSettingsLocation.
4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to SAP Ariba Source data from Klipfolio.

Connect to SAP Ariba Source in Klipfolio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Klipfolio to create a new SAP Ariba Source data source.

1. Open Klipfolio
2. Click in Data Feeds on the left panel to add a new data source.
3. Search for and select MS SQL as the Service.
4. Click "Create a custom MSSQL data source"
5. Configure the data source by setting the SQL Server connection properties:
   • Host: your instance (e.g., CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Port: 1433
   • Database: your database (e.g., SAPAribaSource1)
   • Driver: MS SQL
   • Username: your Connect Server username
   • Password: your Connect Server password
   • SQL Query: any query to retrieve data (e.g., SELECT * FROM Vendors)
   • Select the checkbox to "Include column headers"
6. Click "Get data" to preview the SAP Ariba Source data before building a data model.

Build a Data Model

After retrieving the data, click "Continue." In the new window, configure your data model.

1. Confirm that the model includes all columns you wish to work with
2. Name your model
3. (optional) Set the Description
4. Set "Header in row" to 1
5. Click the toggle to "Exclude data before row" and set the value to 2
6. Click "Save data feed"

Create a Klip

With the data modeled, we are ready to create a Klip (or visualization) of the data to be used in the Klipfolio platform for dashboards, reporting, and more.

1. Click "Add Metric"
2. Select a measure, placed on the y-axis, to track.
3. Select up to five dimensions/columns, for the x-axis, that you wish to visualize.
4. Click "Save metric"

SQL Access to SAP Ariba Source Data from Applications

Now you have a Klip built from live SAP Ariba Source data. You can add it to a new dashboard, share, and more. Easily create more data sources and new visualizations, produce reports, and more — all without replicating SAP Ariba Source data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect Server.