Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live Aha! data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Aha!, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Aha! in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.
Connect to Aha! from API Server
CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.
- Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection
π Adding a connection
- Select "Aha!"
π Selecting a Connector (Salesforce is shown).
- Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Aha!.
Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Aha! Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\aha.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Aha! (see below).
Aha! API Profile Settings
The Aha! API uses OAuth-based authentication.
You will first need to register an OAuth app with Aha!. This can be done from your Aha! account under 'Settings' > 'Personal' > 'Developer' > 'OAuth Applications'. Additionally, set the Domain, found in the domain name of your Aha account. For example if your Aha account is acmeinc.aha.io, then the Domain should be 'acmeinc'.
After setting the following in the connection string, 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 client_id that is specified in you app settings.
- OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client_secret that is specified in you app settings.
- CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.
- Domain: Set this in the ProfileSettings to your Aha domain.
π Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
Add Aha! Resource Definitions in API Server
After connecting to Aha!, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Aha! data.
- Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource
π Adding a new resource
- Select the Aha! connection
π Selecting a connection (Salesforce is shown)
- Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next
π Selecting a Table (Salesforce is shown)
- (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
- Save the settings
Add an API Server User
Create a User to connect to Aha! from Reveal through API Server.
- Click Settings -> Users
- Click Add
- Configure a User with access to the Aha! Connection and Resource(s)
π Creating a new user
π API Server users
(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.
- Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
- Allow all domains without '*': ON
- Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
- Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization
Save the changes to the settings.
π Configuring CORS settings
Create a Dashboard in Reveal
With the API Server configured, we can visualize Aha! data in Reveal.
- Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
π Adding a new dashboard
- Click Data Source -> OData Feed
π Adding a new OData data source
- Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc
π Configuring the OData URL
- Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token
π Configuring the credentials
- Select the entity you wish to visualize
π Selecting an entity to visualize (Salesforce is shown.)
- Select fields and choose a chart type
π Visualizing data in Reveal (Salesforce is shown.)
More Information & Free Trial
At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Aha! data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Aha! (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Aha! data in tools that consume OData APIs.