Analyze Pinterest Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData Connect Server and Pinterest Connector to build dynamic dashboards from live Pinterest data. The CData Connect Server creates a virtual database for Pinterest and can be used to generate an OData API (natively consumable in Reveal) for Pinterest. In this article, we walk through connecting to Pinterest in Connect Server and connecting to Connect Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Add a Connect Server User

Create a User to connect to Pinterest from Reveal through Connect Server.

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

Connect to Pinterest 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 "Pinterest" from Available Data Sources
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Pinterest.

   Pinterest authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Pinterest developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL.

   Set InitiateOAuth to GETANDREFRESH and set OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL based on the property values for the app you created.

   See the Help documentation for other OAuth authentication flows.

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 Pinterest OData Endpoints in Connect Server

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

1. Click OData -> Tables -> Add Tables
2. Select the Pinterest 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 different 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 Dashboard in Reveal

With Connect Server configured, we can visualize Pinterest data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the Connect Server API endpoint URL (found in API -> Discovery -> Base URL), for example: CONNECT_SERVER_URL/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the Connect Server username and authentication token
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize
6. Select fields and choose a chart type

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Pinterest data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Pinterest (and more than 150 other sources), visit the Connect Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Pinterest data in tools that consume OData APIs.