Create Apps from Active Directory Data in Qlik Sense Cloud

Qlik Sense Cloud allows you to create and share data visualizations and interact with information in new ways. CData Connect AI creates a live connection to Active Directory. By pairing Qlik Sense Cloud with CData Connect AI, you get true cloud-to-cloud connectivity to all of your SaaS and cloud-based Big Data and NoSQL sources — no need to migrate your data or write your integrations. Simply connect to Connect AI from Qlik Sense Cloud and get instant, live access to your Active Directory data.

In this article, we walk through two connections:

1. Connecting to Active Directory in Connect AI
2. Connecting to Connect AI from Qlik Sense Cloud to create a model and build a simple dashboard

Configure Active Directory Connectivity for Qlik Sense Cloud

Connectivity to Active Directory from Qlik Cloud is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Active Directory data from Qlik Cloud, we start by creating and configuring a Active Directory connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Active Directory" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Active Directory.

   To establish a connection, set the following properties:

   • Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
   • Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.

   • BaseDN: This will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided.

     Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Active Directory Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
   
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Active Directory data from Qlik Sense Cloud.

Create a Qlik Sense App from Active Directory Data

This section explains how to add Active Directory data to a Qlik Sense app for visualizations, analytics, reporting, and more.

Create a New App and Upload Data

1. Log into your Qlik Sense instance and click the button to create a new app 👁 Creating a new app
   
2. Name and configure the new app and click "Create"
3. In the workspace, click to open the new app
4. Click to add data from files and other sources 👁 Selecting a connector
   
5. Select the Microsoft SQL Server connector and set the configuration properties.
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com
   • Set Port to 14333
   • Set Database to the connection you created (e.g. ActiveDirectory1)
   • Set User name to the Connect AI user (e.g. [email protected])
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
   👁 Configuring the connection
   
6. Select an owner for the connection
7. Select a Active Directory entity (Table) to view 👁 Adding data to the app (Salesforce is shown.)
   
8. Click Next, configure the model, and load the data into Qlik Sense.

Generate Insights or Customize Your App

With the data loaded into Qlik Sense, you are ready to begin discovering insights. You can build custom visualizations, reports, and dashboards engineered to gain actionable insights into your Active Directory data.

More Information & Free Trial

Now, you have created a simple but powerful dashboard from live Active Directory data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Active Directory (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect AI page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Active Directory data in Qlik Sense Cloud.