Build SAS Data Sets-Connected Visualizations in datapine

datapine is a browser-based business intelligence platform. When paired with the CData Connect AI, you get access to your SAS Data Sets data directly from your datapine visualizations and dashboards. This article describes connecting to SAS Data Sets in CData Connect AI and building a simple SAS Data Sets-connected visualization in datapine.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for SAS Data Sets, allowing you to query data from SAS Data Sets without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to SAS Data Sets, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested SAS Data Sets data quickly.

Configure SAS Data Sets Connectivity for datapine

Connectivity to SAS Data Sets from datapine is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with SAS Data Sets data from datapine, we start by creating and configuring a SAS Data Sets connection.

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

2. Select "SAS Data Sets" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAS Data Sets.

   Set the following connection properties to connect to your SAS DataSet files:

   Connecting to Local Files

   • Set the Connection Type to "Local." Local files support SELECT, INSERT, and DELETE commands.
   • Set the URI to a folder containing SAS files, e.g. C:\PATH\TO\FOLDER\.

   Connecting to Cloud-Hosted SAS DataSet Files

   While the driver is capable of pulling data from SAS DataSet files hosted on a variety of cloud data stores, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE are not supported outside of local files in this driver.

   Set the Connection Type to the service hosting your SAS DataSet files. A unique prefix at the beginning of the URI connection property is used to identify the cloud data store and the remainder of the path is a relative path to the desired folder (one table per file) or single file (a single table). For more information, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SAS Data Sets Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. 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 and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to SAS Data Sets data from datapine.

Connecting to SAS Data Sets from datapine

Once you configure your connection to SAS Data Sets in Connect AI, you are ready to connect to SAS Data Sets from datapine.

1. Log into datapine
2. Click Connect to navigate to the "Connect" page
3. Select MS SQL Server as the data source
4. In the Integration step, fill in the connection properties and click "Save and Proceed"
   • Set the Internal Name
   • Set Database Name to the name of the connection we just configured (e.g. SASDataSets1)
   • Set Host / IP to "tds.cdata.com"
   • Set Username to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
   • Set Password to the corresponding PAT
   • Set Database Port to "14333"
   
5. In the Data Schema step, select the tables and fields to visualize and click "Save and Proceed"
6. In the References step, define any relationships between your selected tables and click "Save and Proceed"
7. In the Data Transfer step, click "Go to Analyzer"

Visualize SAS Data Sets Data in datapine

After connecting to CData Connect AI, you are ready to visualize your SAS Data Sets data in datapine. Simply select the dimensions and measures you wish to visualize!

Having connect to SAS Data Sets from datapine, you are now able to visualize and analyze real-time SAS Data Sets data no matter where you are. To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from datapine, try CData Connect AI today!