Visualize SAP ByDesign Data in TIBCO Spotfire through OData

OData is a major protocol enabling real-time communication among cloud-based, mobile, and other online applications. The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for SAP ByDesign, provides SAP ByDesign data (or data from 200+ other ADO.NET Providers) to OData consumers like TIBCO Spotfire. This article shows how to use the API Server and Spotfire's built-in support for OData to access SAP ByDesign data in real time.

Set Up the API Server

Follow the steps below to begin producing secure SAP ByDesign 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 SAP ByDesign

After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for SAP ByDesign, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to SAP ByDesign by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.

Set the following connection properties to connect to SAP ByDesign.

• Url: Set this to the Url of your SAP ByDesign site. For example, https://test.sapbydesign.com
• User: Set this to the username of your account.
• Password: Set this to the password of your account.
• CustomService or AnalyticsService: Only one of these must be specified. If you have a custom service you want to retrieve data from, specify CustomService. If you want to retrieve the reports of a analytical service, specify AnalyticsService.
  If neither is specified, 'cc_home_analytics.svc' will used as a default for the AnalyticsService property. If you are not sure what service to specify, you can always query the Services view to list available services.

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 SAP ByDesign entities you want to allow the API Server access to by clicking Settings -> Resources.

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 Data Visualizations on External SAP ByDesign Data

1. Open Spotfire and click Add Data Tables -> OData.
2. In the OData Connection dialog, enter the following information:
   • Service URL: Enter the API Server's OData endpoint. For example: http://localhost:8032/api.rsc
   • Authentication Method: Select Username and Password.
   • Username: Enter the username of an API Server user. You can create API users on the Security tab of the administration console.
   • Password: Enter the authtoken of an API Server user.
   
3. Select the tables and columns you want to add to the dashboard. This example uses [Inventory Balance].
4. If you want to work with the live data, click the Keep Data Table External option. This option enables your dashboards to reflect changes to the data in real time.

   If you want to load the data into memory and process the data locally, click the Import Data Table option. This option is better for offline use or if a slow network connection is making your dashboard less interactive.

5. After adding tables, the Recommended Visualizations wizard is displayed. When you select a table, Spotfire uses the column data types to detect number, time, and category columns. This example uses ProductCategoryID in the Numbers section and ID in the Categories section.

After adding several visualizations in the Recommended Visualizations wizard, you can make other modifications to the dashboard. For example, you can apply a filter: After clicking the Filter button, the available filters for each query are displayed in the Filters pane.