Build Yahoo! Ads Visualizations in Tableau Cloud

Tableau Cloud is an analytics platform fully hosted in the cloud. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Yahoo! Ads data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Yahoo! Ads and build visualizations from Yahoo! Ads data in Tableau Cloud.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Yahoo! Ads, allowing you to easily build visualizations from live Yahoo! Ads data in Tableau Cloud without installing connectors or publishing worksheets and data sources from Tableau Desktop. As you build visualizations, Tableau Cloud generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Yahoo! Ads, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Yahoo! Ads data.

Configure Yahoo! Ads Connectivity for Tableau Cloud

Connectivity to Yahoo! Ads from Tableau Cloud is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Yahoo! Ads data from Tableau Cloud, we start by creating and configuring a Yahoo! Ads connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Yahoo! Ads" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Yahoo! Ads.

   Authenticating with Yahoo! Ads

   Yahoo! Ads supports OAuth authentication. To authenticate with Yahoo! Ads, set the following connection properties:

   • (Optional) Enter the Search Ads Account Id. If left blank, this defaults to the Authenticated user's primary account.
   • (Optional) Enter the Display Ads Account Id. If left blank, this defaults to the Authenticated user's primary account.

   Click Sign in to connect securely through OAuth. This action opens the Yahoo! Ads sign-in page in a new tab.

   Log in to your Yahoo! Ads account and provide the requested permissions (if applicable).

   
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Yahoo! Ads Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

Configure Yahoo! Ads Endpoints for Salesforce Connect

After connecting to Yahoo! Ads, create a workspace and virtual dataset for your desired table(s).

1. Navigate to the Virtual Datasets page and click Add to create a new Workspace (or select an existing workspace).
2. Click Add to add new assets to the Workspace.
3. Select the Yahoo! Ads connection (e.g. YahooAds1) and click Next.
4. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Confirm.
5. Make note of the OData Service URL for your workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}

With the connection and Workspace configured, you are ready to connect to Yahoo! Ads data from Tableau Cloud.

Visualize Live Yahoo! Ads Data in Tableau Cloud

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Tableau Cloud based on the virtual Yahoo! Ads database in Connect Cloud and building a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Tableau Cloud, select a account, and create a new workbook.
2. In the new workbook, choose the Microsoft SQL Server Connector from the data wizard and fill in the values for your Connect Cloud instance.
   • Set Server to the OData URL for your Workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/MyWorkspace
   • Set Authentication to Username and Password
   • Set Username to your Connect Cloud username (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Set Password to a PAT for the above user
   
3. Select your newly created database and the table(s) you wish to visualize (defining relationships for JOINad tables as needed).

4. Select Dimensions and Measures and configure your visualization.

Real-Time Access to Yahoo! Ads Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Yahoo! Ads data from your Tableau Cloud workbook. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more, with no need to publish data sources and workbooks from Tableau Desktop. For more information on gaining live access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Tableau Cloud, refer to our Connect Cloud page.