Create Apps from YouTube Analytics Data in Qlik Sense Cloud

Qlik Sense Cloud allows you to create and share data visualizations and interact with information in new ways. The CData Connect Server creates a virtual database for YouTube Analytics and can be used to generate an OData API (natively consumable in Qlik Sense Cloud) for YouTube Analytics. By pairing Qlik Sense Cloud with the CData Connect Server, you get live connectivity to all of your SaaS and cloud-based Big Data and NoSQL sources — no need to migrate your data or write your integrations. Simply connect to Connect Server from Qlik Sense Cloud as you would any other REST service and get instant, live access to your YouTube Analytics data.

In this article, we walk through two connections:

1. Connecting to YouTube Analytics in Connect Server
2. Connecting to Connect Server from Qlik Sense Cloud to create a model and build a simple dashboard

Configure Connect Server to Connect to YouTube Analytics

To connect to YouTube Analytics data from Qlik Sense Cloud, you need to configure YouTube Analytics access from your Connect Server instance. This means creating a user, connecting to YouTube Analytics, adding OData endpoints, and (optionally) configuring CORS.

Add a Connect Server User

Create a Connect Server User to connect to YouTube Analytics from Qlik Sense Cloud.

1. Click Users -> Add
2. Configure a User
3. Click Save Changes and make note of the Authtoken for the new user

Connect to YouTube Analytics from Connect Server

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open Connect Server and click Connections
2. Select "YouTube Analytics" from Available Data Sources
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to YouTube Analytics.
   
   

   YouTube Analytics uses the OAuth authentication standard. You can use the embedded CData OAuth credentials or you can register an application with Google to obtain your own.

   In addition to the OAuth values, to access YouTube Analytics data set ChannelId to the Id of a YouTube channel. You can obtain the channel Id in the advanced account settings for your channel. If not specified, the channel of the currently authenticated user will be used.

   If you want to generate content owner reports, specify the ContentOwnerId property. This is the Id of the copyright holder for content in YouTube's rights management system. The content owner is the person or organization that claims videos and sets their monetization policy.

4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add, and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions (SELECT is all that is required for Reveal)

Add YouTube Analytics OData Endpoints in Connect Server

After connecting to YouTube Analytics, create OData Endpoint for the desired table(s).

1. Click OData -> Tables -> Add Tables
2. Select the YouTube Analytics database
3. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in OData -> Settings.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Qlik Sense App from YouTube Analytics Data

With the connection to YouTube Analytics and OData endpoints created, we are ready to add YouTube Analytics data to a Qlik Sense app for visualizations, analytics, reporting, and more.

Create a New App and Upload Data

1. Log into your Qlik Sense instance and click the button to create a new app
2. Name and configure the new app and click "Create"
3. In the workspace, click to open the new app
4. Click to add data from files and other sources
5. Select the REST connector and set the configuration properties. For the most part, you will use the default values, with the following exceptions:
   • URL: Set this to the API endpoint for your YouTube Analytics table, using the @CSV URL parameter to ensure a CSV response (i.e. CONNECT_SERVER_URL/api.rsc/YouTubeAnalytics_Groups?@CSV)
   • Authentication Schema: Set this to "Basic"
   • User Name: Set this to the user name you configured above
   • Password: Set this to the Authtoken for the above user
6. Click "Create" to query Connect Server for the YouTube Analytics data
7. Check "CSV has header" and under "Tables," select "CSV_source"
8. Select columns and click "Add data"

Generate Insights or Customize Your App

With the data loaded into Qlik Sense, you are ready to begin discovering insights. Click "Generate insights" to let Qlik analyze your data. Otherwise, you can build custom visualizations, reports, and dashboards based on your YouTube Analytics data.

More Information & Free Trial

Now, you have created a simple but powerful dashboard from live YouTube Analytics data. For more information on creating OData feeds from YouTube Analytics (and more than 200 other data sources), visit the Connect Server page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live YouTube Analytics data in Qlik Sense Cloud.