Build Airtable-Connected Visualizations in datapine

datapine is a browser-based business intelligence platform. When paired with the CData Connect AI, you get access to your Airtable data directly from your datapine visualizations and dashboards. This article describes connecting to Airtable in CData Connect AI and building a simple Airtable-connected visualization in datapine.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Airtable, allowing you to query data from Airtable 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 Airtable, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Airtable data quickly.

Configure Airtable Connectivity for datapine

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

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

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

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Airtable.

   APIKey, BaseId and TableNames parameters are required to connect to Airtable. ViewNames is an optional parameter where views of the tables may be specified.

   • APIKey : API Key of your account. To obtain this value, after logging in go to Account. In API section click Generate API key.
   • BaseId : Id of your base. To obtain this value, it is in the same section as the APIKey. Click on Airtable API, or navigate to https://airtable.com/api and select a base. In the introduction section you can find "The ID of this base is appxxN2ftedc0nEG7."
   • TableNames : A comma separated list of table names for the selected base. These are the same names of tables as found in the UI.
   • ViewNames : A comma separated list of views in the format of (table.view) names. These are the same names of the views as found in the UI.
   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Airtable 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 Airtable data from datapine.

Connecting to Airtable from datapine

Once you configure your connection to Airtable in Connect AI, you are ready to connect to Airtable from datapine.

1. Log into datapine
2. Click Connect to navigate to the "Connect" page
3. Select MS SQL Server as the data source
4. In the Integration step, fill in the connection properties and click "Save and Proceed"
   • Set the Internal Name
   • Set Database Name to the name of the connection we just configured (e.g. Airtable1)
   • Set Host / IP to "tds.cdata.com"
   • Set Username to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
   • Set Password to the corresponding PAT
   • Set Database Port to "14333"
   👁 Configuring the connection to CData Connect AI
   
5. In the Data Schema step, select the tables and fields to visualize and click "Save and Proceed" 👁 Selecting tables and fields to visualize (Salesforce is shown)
   
6. In the References step, define any relationships between your selected tables and click "Save and Proceed" 👁 Defining foreign key relationships
   
7. In the Data Transfer step, click "Go to Analyzer"

Visualize Airtable Data in datapine

After connecting to CData Connect AI, you are ready to visualize your Airtable data in datapine. Simply select the dimensions and measures you wish to visualize!

Having connect to Airtable from datapine, you are now able to visualize and analyze real-time Airtable data no matter where you are. To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from datapine, try CData Connect AI today!