Use the API Server and Adobe Commerce ADO.NET Provider to Access Adobe Commerce Data in Microsoft PowerPivot

This article will explain how to use the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Adobe Commerce (or any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers) to provide Adobe Commerce data as OData services and then consume the data in Microsoft Excel's PowerPivot business intelligence tool. Follow the steps below to retrieve and edit Adobe Commerce data in Power Pivot.

Set Up the API Server

Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Adobe Commerce OData services:

Deploy

The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.

The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.

Connect to Adobe Commerce

After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Adobe Commerce, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to Adobe Commerce by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.

Adobe Commerce uses the OAuth 1 authentication standard. To connect to the Adobe Commerce REST API, obtain values for the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties by registering an app with your Adobe Commerce system. See the "Getting Started" section in the help documentation for a guide to obtaining the OAuth values and connecting.

You will also need to provide the URL to your Adobe Commerce system. The URL depends on whether you are using the Adobe Commerce REST API as a customer or administrator.

• Customer: To use Adobe Commerce as a customer, make sure you have created a customer account in the Adobe Commerce homepage. To do so, click Account -> Register. You can then set the URL connection property to the endpoint of your Adobe Commerce system.

• Administrator: To access Adobe Commerce as an administrator, set CustomAdminPath instead. This value can be obtained in the Advanced settings in the Admin menu, which can be accessed by selecting System -> Configuration -> Advanced -> Admin -> Admin Base URL.

  If the Use Custom Admin Path setting on this page is set to YES, the value is inside the Custom Admin Path text box; otherwise, set the CustomAdminPath connection property to the default value, which is "admin".

You can then choose the Adobe Commerce entities you want to allow the API Server access to by clicking Settings -> Resources.

Additionally, click Settings -> Server and set the Default Format to XML (Atom) for compatibility with Excel.

Authorize API Server Users

After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. Access can also be restricted based on IP address; by default, only connections to the local machine are allowed. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL.

Import Adobe Commerce Tables in Power Pivot

Follow the steps below to import tables that can be refreshed on demand:

1. In Excel, click the PowerPivot Window icon in the PowerPivot tab to open PowerPivot.
2. Click Home -> Get External Data -> From Data Service -> From OData Data Feed.

3. Add authentication parameters. Click Advanced and set the Integrated Security option to Basic. You will need to enter the User Id and Password of a user who has access to the CData API Server. Set the password to the user's authtoken.

4. In the Base URL box, enter the OData URL of the CData API Server. For example, http://localhost:8032/api.rsc.

   

5. Select which tables you want to import and click Finish.

   

You can now work with Adobe Commerce data in Power Pivot.