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Access Printful Data as OData Feeds in Tableau
Use the Tableau Desktop business intelligence tool to connect to Printful data using the API Server.
The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for Printful (or any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers), provides Printful data as OData Web services. This article will explain how to use the API Server to provide the underlying connectivity to Printful data in Tableau's business intelligence tool.
Set Up the API Server
Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Printful 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 Printful
After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Printful, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to Printful by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.
Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Printful Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Printful.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Printful (see below).
Printful API Profile Settings
In order to authenticate to Printful, you'll need to provide your API Key. To get your API Key, first go to 'Settings' then 'Stores'. Select the Store you would like to connect to, then click the 'Add API Access' button to generate an API Key. Set the API Key in the ProfileSettings property to connect.
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 Printful 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 Printful Data Visualizations
Follow the steps below to create data visualizations based on the remote Printful data:
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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 Printful data, right-click under the table name in the Data section of the dashboard and select the View Data option. The Printful data will appear in Tableau.
