Integrate with SQL Analysis Services Data in JReport Designer

The CData JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports as if SQL Analysis Services were a relational database, allowing you to query SQL Analysis Services data using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to SQL Analysis Services data as a JDBC data source and create reports based on SQL Analysis Services data in JReport Designer.

Connect to SQL Analysis Services Data

1. Edit C:\JReport\Designer\bin\setenv.bat to add the location of the JAR file to the ADDCLASSPATH variable:

   ...
   set ADDCLASSPATH=%JAVAHOME%\lib\tools.jar;C:\Program Files\CData\CData JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services 2016\lib\cdata.jdbc.ssas.jar;
   ...
   

2. Create a new data source by clicking File New Data Source.
3. In the resulting dialog, create a name for the data source (CData JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services), select JDBC, and click OK.
4. In the Get JDBC Connection Information dialog you will configure your connection to the JDBC driver:
   • Driver: Be sure that the Driver box is checked and fill in the name of the class for the driver: cdata.jdbc.ssas.SSASDriver
   • URL: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:ssas: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     To connect, provide authentication and set the Url property to a valid SQL Server Analysis Services endpoint. You can connect to SQL Server Analysis Services instances hosted over HTTP with XMLA access. See the Microsoft documentation to configure HTTP access to SQL Server Analysis Services.

     To secure connections and authenticate, set the corresponding connection properties, below. The data provider supports the major authentication schemes, including HTTP and Windows, as well as SSL/TLS.

     • HTTP Authentication

       Set AuthScheme to "Basic" or "Digest" and set User and Password. Specify other authentication values in CustomHeaders.

     • Windows (NTLM)

       Set the Windows User and Password and set AuthScheme to "NTLM".

     • Kerberos and Kerberos Delegation

       To authenticate with Kerberos, set AuthScheme to NEGOTIATE. To use Kerberos delegation, set AuthScheme to KERBEROSDELEGATION. If needed, provide the User, Password, and KerberosSPN. By default, the data provider attempts to communicate with the SPN at the specified Url.

     • SSL/TLS:

       By default, the data provider attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store. To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats.

     You can then access any cube as a relational table: When you connect the data provider retrieves SSAS metadata and dynamically updates the table schemas. Instead of retrieving metadata every connection, you can set the CacheLocation property to automatically cache to a simple file-based store.

     See the Getting Started section of the CData documentation, under Retrieving Analysis Services Data, to execute SQL-92 queries to the cubes.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the SQL Analysis Services JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.ssas.jar

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     When you configure the JDBC URL, 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.

     Below is a typical JDBC URL:

     jdbc:ssas:User=myuseraccount;Password=mypassword;URL=http://localhost/OLAP/msmdpump.dll;
   • User: The username to authenticate with; typically left blank.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with; typically left blank.

5. In the Add Table dialog, select the tables you wish to include in your report (or in future reports using this data source) and click Add.

   Click Done once the dialog has completed loading the tables.

6. In the Catalog Browser, you can create the queries that you will use to populate your reports. You can do this now, or after you create your report. In either case, expand () the data source (CData JDBC Driver for SQL Analysis Services), right-click on Queries, and select Add Query.
7. In the Add Table/View/Query dialog, expand () the JDBC URL and Tables and select the table(s) you wish to use in the query and click OK.
8. In the Query Editor dialog, you can select the columns you wish to include or simply click the SQL button and manually input your own query. For example:

   SELECT Fiscal_Year, Sales_Amount FROM Adventure_Works
   

   With the query built, click OK to close the Query Editor dialog. At this point you are ready to add SQL Analysis Services data to a new or existing report.

   NOTE: Now that the query is built, you can create a Business View based on the query. With a Business View, you can create Web reports or library components based on the query. For more information on this, refer to the JReport tutorials.

Add SQL Analysis Services Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with SQL Analysis Services data.

1. Create a new report (File New Page Report) or open the Chart Wizard for an existing report.
2. Select the Query (or create a new one; see above).
3. Assign a Category and Value for the chart from the columns in your Query and click Finish.
4. Click the View tab for your report to see the chart.