Build Todoist-Connected Dashboards in Redash

Redash lets you connect and query your data sources, build dashboards to visualize data and share them with your company. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Todoist data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Todoist and build visualizations from Todoist data in Redash.

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

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

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

   Todoist API Profile Settings

   To authenticate to Todoist, and connect to your own data or to allow other users to connect to their data, you can use the OAuth standard.

   First, you will need to register an OAuth application with Todoist. To do so, go to App Management Console, create a new application and configure a valid OAuth redirect URL. Your Oauth application will be assigned a client id and a client secret.

   After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
   • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
   • OAuthClientId: Set this to the client_id that is specified in you app settings.
   • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client_secret that is specified in you app settings.
   • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that is specified in your app settings
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 Todoist data from Redash.

Visualize Todoist Data in Redash

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Redash based on the virtual Todoist database in Connect Server and building a simple visualization from the data.

Create a New Data Source

1. Log into Redash, click on your profile and click "Data Sources"
2. Click the " New Data Source" button
3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the Data Source Type
4. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Name: Name the data source (e.g. Todoist (CData Connect))
   • Host: The full URL to your CData Connect instance (e.g. https://connect_server_url)
   • Port: The port of the CData Connect SQL Server endpoint (e.g. 1433)
   • User: A CData Connect user
   • Password: The password for the above user
   • Database name: The name of the virtual database for Todoist (e.g. API1)
   • Click the checkbox to Use SSQL
5. Click Create
6. Click the "Test Connection" button to ensure you have configured the connection properly

With the new Data Source created, we are ready to visualize our Todoist data.

Create a Todoist Data Visualization

1. Click Create -> New Query
2. Select the newly created Data Source (you can explore the data structure in the New Query wizard)
3. Write a SQL statement to retrieve the data, for example:
   SELECT Id, Priority FROM Tasks WHERE Completed = 'false'
4. Click the "Execute" button to load Todoist data into Redash via CData Connect
5. Use the Visualization Editor to create and analyze graphs from Todoist data
6. You can schedule the query to refresh and update the visualization periodically

SQL Access to Todoist Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to Todoist data from Redash. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Redash, refer to our Connect Server page.