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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/asana-cloud-tableau-online.rst

⇱ Build Asana Visualizations in Tableau Cloud

Build Asana Visualizations in Tableau Cloud

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live Asana data and build visualizations in Tableau Cloud.

Tableau Cloud is an analytics platform fully hosted in the cloud. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Asana data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Asana and build visualizations from Asana data in Tableau Cloud.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Asana, allowing you to easily build visualizations from live Asana data in Tableau Cloud without installing connectors or publishing worksheets and data sources from Tableau Desktop. As you build visualizations, Tableau Cloud generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Asana, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Asana data.

Configure Asana Connectivity for Tableau Cloud

To work with Asana data from Tableau Cloud, we need to connect to Asana from Connect AI, provide user access to the connection, and create a Workspace for the Asana data.

Connect to Asana from 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
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Asana" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Asana.

    You can optionally set the following to refine the data returned from Asana.

    • WorkspaceId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Workspace to only return projects from the specified workspace. To get your workspace id, navigate to https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/workspaces while logged into Asana. This displays a JSON object containing your workspace name and Id.
    • ProjectId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Project to only return data mapped under the specified project. Project IDs can be found in the URL of your project's Overview page. This will be the numbers directly after /0/.

    Connect Using OAuth Authentication

    You must use OAuth to authenticate with Asana. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Asana using the browser. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Asana 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.

Configure Asana Endpoints for Tableau Cloud

After connecting to Asana, create a workspace for your desired table(s).

  1. Navigate to the Workspaces page and click Add to create a new Workspace (or select an existing workspace). 👁 The Workspaces page.
    👁 Adding a new Workspace.
  2. Click Add to add new assets to the Workspace.
  3. Select the Asana connection (e.g. Asana1) and click Next. 👁 Selecting an Asset (Salesforce is shown).
  4. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Confirm. 👁 Selecting Tables (Salesforce is shown).
  5. Make note of the OData Service URL for your workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}

With the connection, PAT, and Workspace configured, you are ready to connect to Asana data from Tableau Cloud.

Visualize Live Asana Data in Tableau Cloud

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Tableau Cloud based on the virtual Asana database in Connect AI and building a simple visualization from the data.

  1. Log into Tableau Cloud, select a account, and create a new workbook.
  2. In the new workbook, choose the OData Connector from the data wizard and fill in the values for your Connect AI instance. 👁 Selecting OData connector in Tableau Cloud
    • Set Server to the OData URL for your Workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}
    • Set Authentication to Username and Password
    • Set Username to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
    • Set Password to a PAT for the above user
    👁 Connect to Connect AI from Tableau Cloud
  3. Select your newly created database and the table(s) you wish to visualize (defining relationships for JOINad tables as needed).
    4. 👁 Choosing a Database and Tables
  4. Select Dimensions and Measures and configure your visualization.
    5. 👁 Visualizing Asana data in Tableau Cloud

Real-Time Access to Asana Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Asana data from your Tableau Cloud workbook. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more, with no need to publish data sources and workbooks from Tableau Desktop. For more information on gaining live access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Tableau Cloud, refer to our Connect AI page.