Build TSheets-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 TSheets data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for TSheets and build visualizations from TSheets data in Redash.

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

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

   TSheets uses the OAuth2 standard for authentication and authorization. To construct your own OAuth app and connect to data, refer to OAuth section in the Help.

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 TSheets data from Redash.

Visualize TSheets Data in Redash

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Redash based on the virtual TSheets 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. TSheets (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 TSheets (e.g. TSheets1)
   • 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 TSheets data.

Create a TSheets 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, JobcodeId FROM Timesheets WHERE JobCodeType = 'regular'
4. Click the "Execute" button to load TSheets data into Redash via CData Connect
5. Use the Visualization Editor to create and analyze graphs from TSheets data
6. You can schedule the query to refresh and update the visualization periodically

SQL Access to TSheets Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to TSheets 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.