Create Square 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 Square data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Square and build reports from Square data in Bold BI.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Square, allowing you to easily build reports from live Square 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 Square, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Square data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Square 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 "Square" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Square.

   Square uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to register an app with Square to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

   Additionally, you must specify the LocationId. You can retrieve the Ids for your Locations by querying the Locations table. Alternatively, you can set the LocationId in the search criteria of your query.

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 Square data from Bold BI.

Visualize Live Square Data in Bold BI

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Bold BI to create a new Square 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 Square on-demand or choose Extract to load the data into Bold BI
   • Database: Choose the database you created from the drop-down menu (squaredb)
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 Square Data from Applications

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

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