Connect to Live SharePoint Data in MicroStrategy through CData Connect Cloud



Create a live connection to SharePoint Data in CData Connect Cloud and connect to your SharePoint data from MicroStrategy.

MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When you pair MicroStrategy with CData Connect Cloud, you gain database-like access to live SharePoint data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through connecting to SharePoint in Connect Cloud and connecting to Connect Cloud in MicroStrategy to create a simple visualization of SharePoint data.

As a cloud-based integration platform, Connect Cloud is ideal for working with cloud-based BI and analytics tools. With no servers to configure or data proxies to set up, you can simply use the web-based UI to create a live connection to SharePoint and connect from MicroStrategy to start performing analytics based on live SharePoint data.

About SharePoint Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from SharePoint has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Access data from a wide range of SharePoint versions, including Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and above, and SharePoint Online.
  • Access all of SharePoint thanks to support for Hidden and Lookup columns.
  • Recursively scan folders to create a relational model of all SharePoint data.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to upload and download documents and attachments.

Most customers rely on CData solutions to integrate SharePoint data into their database or data warehouse, while others integrate their SharePoint data with preferred data tools, like Power BI, Tableau, or Excel.

For more information on how customers are solving problems with CData's SharePoint solutions, refer to our blog: Drivers in Focus: Collaboration Tools.


Getting Started


Configure SharePoint Connectivity for Microstrategy

Connectivity to SharePoint from Microstrategy is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with SharePoint data from Microstrategy, we start by creating and configuring a SharePoint connection.

  1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
  2. Select "SharePoint" from the Add Connection panel
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SharePoint.

    Set the URL property to the base SharePoint site or to a sub-site. This allows you to query any lists and other SharePoint entities defined for the site or sub-site.

    The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid SharePoint user credentials when using SharePoint On-Premise.

    If you are connecting to SharePoint Online, set the SharePointEdition to SHAREPOINTONLINE along with the User and Password connection string properties. For more details on connecting to SharePoint Online, see the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation

  4. Click Create & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SharePoint 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.

  1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
  2. Oa the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give your 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, you are ready to connect to SharePoint data from MicroStrategy.

Connect to and Visualize SharePoint Data Using MicroStrategy

You can connect to SharePoint in MicroStrategy by adding a data source based on the native SQL Server functionality. Once you have created a data source, you can build dynamic visualizations of SharePoint data in MicroStrategy.

  1. Open MicroStrategy and select your account.
  2. Click Add External Data, select Databases, and use Select Tables as the Import Option.
  3. In the Import from Tables wizard, click to add a new Data Source.
  4. Select "SQL Server" in the Database menu and select "SQL Server 2017" in the Version menu.
  5. Sat the connection properties as follows:
    • Server Name: tds.cdata.com
    • Port Number: 14333
    • Database Name: the name of your SharePoint connection (e.g. SharePoint1)
    • User: a Connect Cloud user
    • Password: the PAT for your Connect Cloud user
    • Data Source Name: a name for the new external data source, like "CData Cloud SharePoint"
  6. Expand the menu for the new data source and choose "Edit Catalog Options"
  7. Edit the "SQL statement retrieve columns ..." query to include TABLE_SCHEMA = '#?Schema_Name?#' in the WHERE clause, and click Apply and then OK (the complete query is below).

    SELECT DISTINCT 
      TABLE_SCHEMA NAME_SPACE, 
      TABLE_NAME TAB_NAME, 
      COLUMN_NAME COL_NAME, 
      (CASE 
        WHEN 
          (DATA_TYPE LIKE '%char' AND (CHARACTER_SET_NAME='utf8' OR CHARACTER_SET_NAME='usc2')) 
        THEN 
          CONCAT('a',DATA_TYPE) 
        ELSE 
          DATA_TYPE 
      END) DATA_TYPE, 
      CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH DATA_LEN, 
      NUMERIC_PRECISION DATA_PREC, 
      NUMERIC_SCALE DATA_SCALE 
    FROM 
      INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS 
    WHERE 
      TABLE_NAME 
    IN 
      (#TABLE_LIST#) AND TABLE_SCHEMA='#?Schema_Name?#' 
    ORDER BY 
      1,2,3
    
  8. Select the new data source and select the Namespace that corresponds to your virtual SharePoint database (like SharePoint1).
  9. Drag tables into the pane to insert then. Note: Since we create a live connection, we can insert whole tables and utilize the filtering and aggregation features native to the MicroStrategy products to customize our datasets.
  10. Click Finish, choose the option to connect live, save the query, and choose the option to create a new dossier. Live connections are possible and effective, thanks to high-performance data processing native to CData Connect Cloud.
  11. Choose a visualization, choose fields to display, and apply any filters to create a new visualization of SharePoint data. Data types are discovered automatically through dynamic metadata discovery. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to SharePoint, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed by the CData SQL engine embedded in Connect Cloud.
  12. Once you have finished configuring the dossier, click File -> Save.

Using CData Connect Cloud with MicroStrategy, you can easily create robust visualizations and reports on SharePoint data. For more information on connecting to SharePoint (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live SharePoint data in MicroStrategy.

Ready to get started?

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