Connect to Live Adobe Analytics Data in PostGresSQL Interface through CData Connect AI

There are a vast number of PostgreSQL clients available on the Internet. PostgreSQL is a popular interface for data access. When you pair PostgreSQL with CData Connect AI, you gain database-like access to live Adobe Analytics data from PostgreSQL. In this article, we walk through the process of connecting to Adobe Analytics data in Connect AI and establishing a connection between Connect AI and PostgreSQL using a TDS foreign data wrapper (FDW).

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.

Connect to Adobe Analytics in Connect AI

CData Connect AI uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.

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 PostgreSQL.

Build the TDS Foreign Data Wrapper

The Foreign Data Wrapper can be installed as an extension to PostgreSQL, without recompiling PostgreSQL. The tds_fdw extension is used as an example (https://github.com/tds-fdw/tds_fdw).

1. You can clone and build the git repository via something like the following view source:

   sudo apt-get install git
   git clone https://github.com/tds-fdw/tds_fdw.git
   cd tds_fdw
   make USE_PGXS=1
   sudo make USE_PGXS=1 install
   

   Note: If you have several PostgreSQL versions and you do not want to build for the default one, first locate where the binary for pg_config is, take note of the full path, and then append PG_CONFIG=
2. After you finish the installation, then start the server:

   sudo service postgresql start
   

3. Then go inside the Postgres database

   psql -h localhost -U postgres -d postgres
   

   Note: Instead of localhost you can put the IP where your PostgreSQL is hosted.

Connect to Adobe Analytics data as a PostgreSQL Database and query the data!

After you have installed the extension, follow the steps below to start executing queries to Adobe Analytics data:

1. Log into your database.
2. Load the extension for the database:

   CREATE EXTENSION tds_fdw;
   

3. Create a server object for Adobe Analytics data:

   CREATE SERVER "AdobeAnalytics1" FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER tds_fdw OPTIONS (servername'tds.cdata.com', port '14333', database 'AdobeAnalytics1');
   

4. Configure user mapping with your email and Personal Access Token from your Connect AI account:

   CREATE USER MAPPING for postgres SERVER "AdobeAnalytics1" OPTIONS (username '[email protected]', password 'your_personal_access_token' );
   

5. Create the local schema:

   CREATE SCHEMA "AdobeAnalytics1";
   

6. Create a foreign table in your local database:

   #Using a table_name definition:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "AdobeAnalytics1".AdsReport ( 
   id varchar, 
   PageViews varchar) 
   SERVER "AdobeAnalytics1"
   OPTIONS(table_name 'AdobeAnalytics.AdsReport', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   
   #Or using a schema_name and table_name definition:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "AdobeAnalytics1".AdsReport ( 
   id varchar, 
   PageViews varchar) 
   SERVER "AdobeAnalytics1"
   OPTIONS (schema_name 'AdobeAnalytics', table_name 'AdsReport', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   
   #Or using a query definition:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "AdobeAnalytics1".AdsReport (
   id varchar, 
   PageViews varchar) 
   SERVER "AdobeAnalytics1"
   OPTIONS (query 'SELECT * FROM AdobeAnalytics.AdsReport', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   
   #Or setting a remote column name:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "AdobeAnalytics1".AdsReport (
   id varchar,
   col2 varchar OPTIONS (column_name 'PageViews'))
   SERVER "AdobeAnalytics1"
   OPTIONS (schema_name 'AdobeAnalytics', table_name 'AdsReport', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   

7. You can now execute read/write commands to Adobe Analytics:

   SELECT id, PageViews
   FROM "AdobeAnalytics1".AdsReport;
   

More Information & Free Trial

Now, you have created a simple query from live Adobe Analytics data. For more information on connecting to Adobe Analytics (and more than 200 other data sources), visit the Connect AI page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Adobe Analytics data in PostgreSQL.