ScrapingBee Reporting and Star Schemas in OBIEE

The CData ODBC Driver for ScrapingBee is a standard database driver that can integrate real-time access to ScrapingBee data into your data warehouse or directly into your reporting tool. This article shows how to bypass the data warehouse and import operational ScrapingBee data into Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE).

See the knowledge base for ODBC integrations with ETL tools like Informatica PowerCenter. For an ETL solution into Oracle Warehouse Builder, use the driver with the Oracle ODBC Gateway to Access ScrapingBee Data as a Remote Oracle Database.

Connect to ScrapingBee as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Using API Key Authentication

ScrapingBee uses API key authentication. To obtain an API key:

1. Sign in to your ScrapingBee account at https://app.scrapingbee.com
2. Navigate to the Dashboard and locate your API key in the top section.
3. Copy the API key for use in the connection string.

After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.

Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:

• APIKey: Set this to your ScrapingBee API key.

Example Connection String

Profile=C:\profiles\ScrapingBee.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings="APIKey=your_api_key";

Connecting to ScrapingBee

Once the authentication is configured, you can connect to ScrapingBee and query data from any of the available tables. All tables require at least one input parameter (such as a search query or product ID) to retrieve data.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Import ScrapingBee Metadata

Follow the steps below to use the OBIEE Client Tools to import ScrapingBee metadata into an OBIEE repository. You can then integrate ScrapingBee data into your business models.

1. Open the Administration Tool and click File -> New Repository.

2. In the Connection Type menu, select ODBC 3.5 and select the CData DSN.
3. Select the metadata types you want to import under the Relational Sources option and then select ScrapingBee tables.

You can now create star schemas based on ScrapingBee tables: