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Access OData Services as OData Feeds in Tableau
Use the Tableau Desktop business intelligence tool to connect to OData services using the API Server.
The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for OData (or any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers), provides OData services as OData Web services. This article will explain how to use the API Server to provide the underlying connectivity to OData services in Tableau's business intelligence tool.
About OData Data Integration
CData simplifies access and integration of live OData services data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:
- Access OData versions 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0, working with legacy services and the latest features and capabilities.
- Leverage advanced query options, including $filter, $select, and $expand, enhancing data retrieval from 3rd party tools.
- Use Server-side execution of aggregation and grouping to minimize data transfer and boost performance.
- Authenticate securely using a variety of schemes, including Azure AD, digest, negotiate, NTLM, OAuth, and more means secure authentication with every connection.
- Use SQL stored procedures to manage OData service entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.
Customers use CData's solutions to regularly integrate their OData services with preferred tools, such as Power BI, MicroStrategy, or Tableau, and to replicate data from OData services to their databases or data warehouses.
Getting Started
Set Up the API Server
Follow the steps below to begin producing secure OData 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 OData
After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for OData, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to OData by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.
The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid OData user credentials. In addition, specify a URL to a valid OData server organization root or OData services file.
When you configure the connection, 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.
You can then choose the OData entities you want to allow the API Server to access by clicking Settings -> Resources.
Additionally, click Settings -> Server and set the Default Format to XML (Atom) for compatibility with Tableau.
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.
Create Real-Time OData Services Visualizations
Follow the steps below to create data visualizations based on the remote OData services:
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In Tableau, select 'Connect to data'. In the 'On a server' section, click OData.
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In the resulting wizard, enter the URL of the OData endpoint for the API Server. Append the name of the table you want to access to the OData entry URL. For example:
https://your-server/api.rsc/Orders -
Select the
'Use a Username and Password' option and enter the username and password of a user who has access to the API Server.
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Tableau uses the table metadata exposed by the API Server to detect dimension and measure columns.
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To view the OData services, right-click under the table name in the Data section of the dashboard and select the View Data option. The OData services will appear in Tableau.
