Connect to Talkdesk Data from Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports is a business intelligence application by SAP designed to help you analyze your data with well-formatted, pixel-perfect, and multi-page reports. When paired with CData Connect AI, Crystal Reports gets access to live Talkdesk data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Talkdesk using Connect AI and report on Talkdesk data in Crystal Reports.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Talkdesk, allowing you to query data from Talkdesk without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Talkdesk, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Talkdesk data quickly.

Configure Talkdesk Connectivity for Crystal Reports

Connectivity to Talkdesk from Crystal Reports is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Talkdesk data from Crystal Reports, we start by creating and configuring a Talkdesk connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Talkdesk" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Talkdesk.

   Talkdesk uses the OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials grant. There is no browser-based authorization step and no callback URL.

   Set the following connection properties:

   • AccountName: The name of your Talkdesk account.
   • Region: The region where your Talkdesk instance is deployed. Supported values are US (default), EU, CA, AU, UK, and FedRamp.
   • OAuthClientId: The Client Id assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.
   • OAuthClientSecret: The Client Secret assigned to your custom OAuth application.

   Creating a Custom OAuth Application

   1. Log in to your Talkdesk account and select OAuth Clients from the navigation menu.
   2. Click Create OAuth Client and give the client a descriptive name.
   3. Set Grant Type to Client Credentials.
   4. Click Add scopes and select the scopes for the data you want to access.
   5. Click Create and copy the Client Id and Client Secret.

   When you connect, the driver automatically requests an access token from Talkdesk, caches it, and refreshes it when it expires. Make sure the scopes selected for the application match the views you plan to query, or the token request can fail.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Talkdesk Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the 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 and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Talkdesk data from Crystal Reports.

Connect to Talkdesk from Crystal Reports using Connect AI

To establish a connection from Crystal Reports to CData Connect AI, you will need to download the JDBC driver.

1. Open the Client Tools page of CData Connect AI.
2. Search for and select JDBC.
3. Download and run the setup file.
4. When the installation is complete, locate the JDBC Connect JAR file in the JDBC driver's installation directory, for example, C:\Program Files\CData\JDBC Driver for CData Connect\lib.
5. Copy the JDBC Connect JAR file (cdata.jdbc.connect.jar).

After copying the JDBC CData Connect JAR file, you will need to paste it into the Crystal Reports installation location and configure the connection to Connect AI.

1. Find the installation directory for Crystal Reports, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\lib
2. Paste the JDBC Connect JAR file into the Crystal Reports installation directory.
3. Go to the parent java folder. For example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java This folder should contain a CRConfig file.
4. Open CRConfig in a text editor.
5. Add the path to the JDBC CData Connect JAR file in the of the CRConfig file, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\lib
6. Log into Crystal Reports and start a blank report.
7. In the Database Expert dialog, click Create New Connection.
8. Select the JDBC data source and the tables you want to add. Click OK.
9. In the Connection dialog, enter the Connection URL (e.g. jdbc:connect:AuthScheme=Basic;user=username;password=PAT;) and Database Classname (e.g. cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver).
10. Click Finish. The Database Expert dialog displays all available connections.

You can now create reports with the connected data.

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