Analyze Twitter Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server and Twitter ADO.NET Provider to build dynamic dashboards from live Twitter data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Twitter, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Twitter in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Twitter from API Server

CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection
2. Select "Twitter"
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Twitter.

   All tables require authentication. You can connect using your User and Password or OAuth. To authenticate using OAuth, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL or you can register an app to obtain your own.

   If you intend to communicate with Twitter only as the currently authenticated user, then you can obtain the OAuthAccessToken and OAuthAccessTokenSecret directly by registering an app.

   See the Getting Started chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

   

Add Twitter Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Twitter, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Twitter data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource
2. Select the Twitter connection
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to Twitter from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the Twitter Connection and Resource(s)

(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 Settings -> Server.

• 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 the API Server configured, we can visualize Twitter data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API 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 Twitter data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Twitter (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Twitter data in tools that consume OData APIs.