Create Reports from Avalara AvaTax Data in Looker Studio

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect Cloud, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Avalara AvaTax data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Avalara AvaTax and generating reports from Avalara AvaTax data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect Cloud offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Avalara AvaTax, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Avalara AvaTax data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Avalara AvaTax. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Avalara AvaTax data.

Configure Avalara AvaTax Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to Avalara AvaTax from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Avalara AvaTax data from Looker Studio, we start by creating and configuring a Avalara AvaTax connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Avalara AvaTax" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Avalara AvaTax.

   The primary method for performing basic authentication is to provide your login credentials, as follows:

   • User: Set this to your username.
   • Password: Set this to your password.

   Optionally, if you are making use of a sandbox environment, set the following:

   • UseSandbox: Set this to true if you are authenticating with a sandbox account.

   Authenticating Using Account Number and License Key

   Alternatively, you can authenticate using your account number and license key. Connect to data using the following:

   • AccountId: Set this to your Account Id. The Account Id is listed in the upper right hand corner of the admin console.
   • LicenseKey: Set this to your Avalara Avatax license key. You can generate a license key by logging into Avalara Avatax as an account administrator and navigating to Settings -> Reset License Key.
   
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Avalara AvaTax Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Avalara AvaTax data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Avalara AvaTax Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Looker Studio to create a new Avalara AvaTax data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect Cloud Connector.

2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account.
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud instance
4. In the CData Connect Cloud Connector in Looker Studio select a Connection (e.g. AvalaraAvatax1) and click Next
5. Select a Table (e.g. Transactions) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue
6. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.

7. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
8. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.

Live Access to Avalara AvaTax Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Avalara AvaTax data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Avalara AvaTax data.

Try CData Connect Cloud and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.