Build Dashboards with Adobe Experience Manager Data in DBxtra

The CData ODBC driver for Adobe Experience Manager enables access to live data from Adobe Experience Manager under the ODBC standard, allowing you work with Adobe Experience Manager data in a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and directly, using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to Adobe Experience Manager data as a generic ODBC Data Provider and create charts, reports, and dashboards based on Adobe Experience Manager data in DBxtra.

Connect to Adobe Experience Manager Data

1. If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can configure the DSN using the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the Help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.
   
   

   The driver connects to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) instances that expose the JCR repository over WebDAV. It supports both on-premises AEM and AEM as a Cloud Service deployments.

   To establish a connection, set the following properties:

   • URL: The WebDAV-enabled JCR server URL.
     • AEM as a Cloud Service: https://author-pXXXXX-eXXXXX.adobeaemcloud.com/crx/server
     • Local development: http://localhost:4502/crx/server
   • User: Your AEM username.
   • Password: Your AEM password.

   Note: Tables are dynamically generated based on the JCR repository structure. Ensure that the configured user has sufficient permissions to access the required content paths in the AEM repository.

   When you configure the DSN, 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.

2. Open the DBxtra application and in the New menu click Project and name the Project. 👁 Creating a New Project.
   
3. Select ODBC Connection as the Data Connection Type. 👁 Creating an ODBC Connection.
   
4. Click the browse option () for the Data Source.
5. In the Data Link Properties window, select Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers on the Provider tab. 👁 Select the Provider
   
6. On the Connection tab, select the Data Source Name and the initial catalog to use (CData). 👁 Select the Provider
   
7. Name the Connection and select the appropriate User Groups. 👁 Connection name and User Groups
   
8. Double-click the Connection from within the Project to connect to the data. 👁 Connecting to the data.
   

Create a Dashboard with Adobe Experience Manager Data

You are now ready to create a dashboard with Adobe Experience Manager data.

1. Right-click Report Objects under the Project and select New Report Object. 👁 Creating a Report Object for the Project
   
2. In the new Report Object, click the link to create the Query.
3. In the Select Data Connection window, select the newly created data connection. 👁 Select Data Connection
   
4. On the Query tab, expand the connection objects and select the Tables, Views, and specific columns you wish to include in your dashboard. You can specify search requirements and even create complex queries which include JOINs and aggregations. 👁 Selecting the data/building the query.
   
5. On the Dashboard tab, select the visualizations and features for your dashboard. Assign the data values from the query to the appropriate fields for the Dashboards items (Values, Series, etc.) 👁 Building the Dashboard.
   

With a new Dashboard created, you are ready to begin analysis of Adobe Experience Manager data. Thanks to the ODBC Driver for Adobe Experience Manager, you can refresh the Dashboard and immediately see any changes made at the source. In the same way, you can create and view Reports with live, up-to-date Adobe Experience Manager data.