Analyze ShipEngine Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live ShipEngine data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for ShipEngine, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to ShipEngine in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to ShipEngine from API Server

CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection
2. Select "ShipEngine"
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to ShipEngine.

   Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the ShipEngine Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\ShipEngine.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for ShipEngine (see below).

   ShipEngine API Profile Settings

   Retrieve your ShipEngine API Key from the Dashboard at app.shipengine.com under API Management.

   

Add ShipEngine Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to ShipEngine, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for ShipEngine data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource
2. Select the ShipEngine connection
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to ShipEngine from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the ShipEngine Connection and Resource(s)

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With the API Server configured, we can visualize ShipEngine data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize
6. Select fields and choose a chart type

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live ShipEngine data. For more information on creating OData feeds from ShipEngine (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live ShipEngine data in tools that consume OData APIs.