Create Apps from Avalara AvaTax Data in Qlik Sense Cloud

Qlik Sense Cloud allows you to create and share data visualizations and interact with information in new ways. CData Connect Cloud creates a live connection to Avalara AvaTax. By pairing Qlik Sense Cloud with CData Connect Cloud, you get true cloud-to-cloud 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 Cloud from Qlik Sense Cloud and get instant, live access to your Avalara AvaTax data.

In this article, we walk through two connections:

1. Connecting to Avalara AvaTax in Connect Cloud
2. Connecting to Connect Cloud from Qlik Sense Cloud to create a model and build a simple dashboard

Configure Avalara AvaTax Connectivity for Qlik Cloud

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

(Optional) Add a New Connect Cloud User

As needed, create Users to connect to Avalara AvaTax through Connect Cloud.

1. Navigate to the Users page and click Invite Users
2. Enter the new user's email address and click Send to invite the user
3. You can review and edit users from the Users page

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication to the CData Connect Cloud OData service. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

Connect to Avalara AvaTax from Connect Cloud

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

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 to Avalara AvaTax configured, you are ready to connect to Avalara AvaTax data from Qlik Sense Cloud.

Create a Qlik Sense App from Avalara AvaTax Data

This section walks through adding Avalara AvaTax 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 Microsoft SQL Server connector and set the configuration properties.
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com
   • Set Port to 14333
   • Set Database to the connection you created (e.g. AvalaraAvatax1)
   • Set User name to the Connect Cloud user (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
6. Select an owner for the connection
7. Select a Avalara AvaTax entity (Table) to view
8. Click Next, configure the model, and load the data into Qlik Sense.

Generate Insights or Customize Your App

With the data loaded into Qlik Sense, you are ready to begin discovering insights. You can build custom visualizations, reports, and dashboards engineered to gain actionable insights into your Avalara AvaTax data.

More Information & Free Trial

Now, you have created a simple but powerful dashboard from live Avalara AvaTax data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Avalara AvaTax (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Avalara AvaTax data in Qlik Sense Cloud.