Visualize Zoom 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 Zoom, provides Zoom 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 Zoom data in real time.

Set Up the API Server

Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Zoom 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 Zoom

After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Zoom, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to Zoom 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 Zoom Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Zoom.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Zoom (see below).

Zoom API Profile Settings

To authenticate to Zoom, you can use the OAuth standard to connect to your own data or to allow other users to connect to their data.

First create an OAuth app. To do so, navigate to https://marketplace.zoom.us/develop/create and click Create under the OAuth section. Select whether or not the app will be for individual users or for the entire account, and uncheck the box to publish the app. Give the app a name and click Create. You will then be given your Client Secret and Client ID

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientID: Set this to the OAuth Client ID that is specified in your app settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the OAuth Client Secret that is specified in your app settings.
• CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.

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 Zoom 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 Zoom 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 MeetingRegistrants.
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 JobTitle 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.