Typeform Reporting and Star Schemas in OBIEE

The CData ODBC Driver for Typeform is a standard database driver that can integrate real-time access to Typeform data into your data warehouse or directly into your reporting tool. This article shows how to bypass the data warehouse and import operational Typeform data into Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE).

See the knowledge base for ODBC integrations with ETL tools like Informatica PowerCenter. For an ETL solution into Oracle Warehouse Builder, use the driver with the Oracle ODBC Gateway to Access Typeform Data as a Remote Oracle Database.

Connect to Typeform as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

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

TypeForm API Profile Settings

Authentication to TypeForm uses the OAuth standard.

To authenticate to TypeForm, you must first register and configure an OAuth application with TypeForm here: https://admin.typeform.com/account#/section/tokens. Your app will be assigned a client ID and a client secret which can be set in the connection string. More information on setting up an OAuth application can be found at https://developer.typeform.com/get-started/.

Note that there are several different use scenarios which all require different redirect URIs:

• CData Desktop Applications: CData desktop applications (Sync, API Server, ArcESB) accept OAuth tokens at /src/oauthCallback.rst. The host and port is the same as the default port used by the application. For example, if you use http://localhost:8019/ to access CData Sync then the redirect URI will be http://localhost:8019/src/oauthCallback.rst.
• CData Cloud Applications: CData cloud applications are similar to their desktop counterparts. If you access Connect Cloud at https://1.2.3.4/ then you should use the redirect https://1.2.3.4/src/oauthCallback.rst.
• Desktop Application: When using a desktop application, the URI https://localhost:33333 is recommended.
• Web Application: When developing a web application using the driver, use your own URI here such as https://my-website.com/oauth.

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 your app settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to Client Secret that is specified in your app settings.
• CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.

When you configure the DSN, 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.

Import Typeform Metadata

Follow the steps below to use the OBIEE Client Tools to import Typeform metadata into an OBIEE repository. You can then integrate Typeform data into your business models.

1. Open the Administration Tool and click File -> New Repository.

2. In the Connection Type menu, select ODBC 3.5 and select the CData DSN.
3. Select the metadata types you want to import under the Relational Sources option and then select Typeform tables.