Create SharePoint Dashboards in Bold BI

Bold BI allows you to create, share, and collaborate on interactive BI dashboards. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to SharePoint data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for SharePoint and build reports from SharePoint data in Bold BI.

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

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for SharePoint 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 "SharePoint" from Available Data Sources.
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 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 SharePoint data from Bold BI.

Visualize Live SharePoint Data in Bold BI

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Bold BI to create a new SharePoint data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into your Bold BI instance, click the data sources tab, create a new data source, and choose the SQL Server connector.
2. Choose the basic configuration and set the connection properties:
   • Name: Name your connection
   • Server name: Your Connect Server instance (CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Port: 1433
   • Username: Your Connect Server username
   • Password: Your Connect Server password
   • Mode: Choose Live to query SharePoint on-demand or choose Extract to load the data into Bold BI
   • Database: Choose the database you created from the drop-down menu (sharepointdb)
3. Click Connect
4. Select the table to visualize and drag it onto the workspace.
5. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
6. Click the gear icon for the visualization to configure the visualization properties and assign columns to the visualization.

SQL Access to SharePoint Data from Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live SharePoint data from your Bold BI workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating SharePoint data.

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