Connect to Adobe Analytics Data as an External Data Source using PolyBase

PolyBase for SQL Server allows you to query external data by using the same Transact-SQL syntax used to query a database table. When paired with the CData ODBC Driver for Adobe Analytics, you get access to your Adobe Analytics data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live Adobe Analytics data using T-SQL queries.

NOTE: PolyBase is only available on SQL Server 19 and above.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Adobe Analytics, allowing you to query data from Adobe Analytics without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Adobe Analytics, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Adobe Analytics data quickly.

Configure Adobe Analytics Connectivity for PolyBase

Connectivity to Adobe Analytics from PolyBase is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Adobe Analytics data from PolyBase, we start by creating and configuring a Adobe Analytics connection.

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

2. Select "Adobe Analytics" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Adobe Analytics.

   Adobe Analytics uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties. See the "Getting Started" section of the help documentation for a guide.

   Retrieving GlobalCompanyId

   GlobalCompanyId is a required connection property. If you do not know your Global Company ID, you can find it in the request URL for the users/me endpoint on the Swagger UI. After logging into the Swagger UI Url, expand the users endpoint and then click the GET users/me button. Click the Try it out and Execute buttons. Note your Global Company ID shown in the Request URL immediately preceding the users/me endpoint.

   Retrieving Report Suite Id

   Report Suite ID (RSID) is also a required connection property. In the Adobe Analytics UI, navigate to Admin -> Report Suites and you will get a list of your report suites along with their identifiers next to the name.

   After setting the GlobalCompanyId, RSID and OAuth connection properties, you are ready to connect to Adobe Analytics.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Adobe Analytics 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 Adobe Analytics data from Polybase.

Create an External Data Source for Adobe Analytics Data

After configuring the connection, you need to create a credential database for the external data source.

Creating a Credential Database

Execute the following SQL command to create credentials for the external data source connected to Adobe Analytics data.

NOTE: Set IDENTITY to your Connect AI username and set SECRET to your Personal Access Token.

CREATE DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIAL ConnectCloudCredentials
WITH IDENTITY = 'yourusername', SECRET = 'yourPAT';

Create an External Data Source for Adobe Analytics

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE SQL command to create an external data source for Adobe Analytics with PolyBase:

CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE ConnectCloudInstance
WITH ( 
 LOCATION = 'sqlserver://tds.cdata.com:14333',
 PUSHDOWN = ON,
 CREDENTIAL = ConnectCloudCredentials
);

Create External Tables for Adobe Analytics

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to Adobe Analytics data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by CData Connect AI. You can use the Data Explorer in Connect AI to see the table definition.

👁 Table definition in the Data Explorer (Salesforce is shown)

Sample CREATE TABLE Statement

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE SQL command to create the external table(s), using the collation and setting the LOCATION to three-part notation for the connection, catalog, and table. The statement to create an external table based on a Adobe Analytics AdsReport would look similar to the following.

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE AdsReport(
 Page COLLATE [nvarchar](255) NULL,
 PageViews COLLATE [nvarchar](255) NULL,
 ...
) WITH ( 
 LOCATION='AdobeAnalytics1.AdobeAnalytics.AdsReport',
 DATA_SOURCE=ConnectCloudInstance
);

Having created external tables for Adobe Analytics in your SQL Server instance, you are now able to query local and remote data simultaneously. To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your SQL Server database, try CData Connect AI today!