Build SAS Data Sets-Connected Dashboards in Redash

Redash lets you connect and query your data sources, build dashboards to visualize data and share them with your company. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to SAS Data Sets data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for SAS Data Sets and build visualizations from SAS Data Sets data in Redash.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for SAS Data Sets, allowing you to easily build reports from live SAS Data Sets data in Redash — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Redash 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 SAS Data Sets, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested SAS Data Sets data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for SAS Data Sets 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 "SAS Data Sets" from Available Data Sources.
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 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 SAS Data Sets data from Redash.

Visualize SAS Data Sets Data in Redash

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Redash based on the virtual SAS Data Sets database in Connect Server and building a simple visualization from the data.

Create a New Data Source

1. Log into Redash, click on your profile and click "Data Sources"
2. Click the " New Data Source" button
3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the Data Source Type
4. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Name: Name the data source (e.g. SAS Data Sets (CData Connect))
   • Host: The full URL to your CData Connect instance (e.g. https://connect_server_url)
   • Port: The port of the CData Connect SQL Server endpoint (e.g. 1433)
   • User: A CData Connect user
   • Password: The password for the above user
   • Database name: The name of the virtual database for SAS Data Sets (e.g. SASDataSets1)
   • Click the checkbox to Use SSQL
5. Click Create
6. Click the "Test Connection" button to ensure you have configured the connection properly

With the new Data Source created, we are ready to visualize our SAS Data Sets data.

Create a SAS Data Sets Data Visualization

1. Click Create -> New Query
2. Select the newly created Data Source (you can explore the data structure in the New Query wizard)
3. Write a SQL statement to retrieve the data, for example:
   SELECT name, borough FROM restaurants WHERE cuisine = 'American'
4. Click the "Execute" button to load SAS Data Sets data into Redash via CData Connect
5. Use the Visualization Editor to create and analyze graphs from SAS Data Sets data
6. You can schedule the query to refresh and update the visualization periodically

SQL Access to SAS Data Sets Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to SAS Data Sets data from Redash. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Redash, refer to our Connect Server page.