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Access RSS Feeds as OData Feeds in Tableau
Use the Tableau Desktop business intelligence tool to connect to RSS feeds using the API Server.
The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for RSS (or any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers), provides RSS feeds as OData Web services. This article will explain how to use the API Server to provide the underlying connectivity to RSS feeds in Tableau's business intelligence tool.
Set Up the API Server
Follow the steps below to begin producing secure RSS 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 RSS
After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for RSS, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to RSS by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.
You can connect to RSS and Atom feeds, as well as feeds with custom extensions. To connect to a feed, set the URL property. You can also access secure feeds. A variety of authentication mechanisms are supported. See the help documentation for details.
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 RSS 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 RSS Feeds Visualizations
Follow the steps below to create data visualizations based on the remote RSS feeds:
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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/Latest News -
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 RSS feeds, right-click under the table name in the Data section of the dashboard and select the View Data option. The RSS feeds will appear in Tableau.
