Integrate Avalara AvaTax Data in the Pentaho Report Designer

The CData JDBC driver for Avalara AvaTax data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to Avalara AvaTax data as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on Avalara AvaTax data in Pentaho.

Connect and Create a Report

1. Copy the JAR file of the driver, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, to the \Report-Designer\lib\jdbc\ folder in the Pentaho directory.
2. Run the report-designer.bat file in the \Report-Designer\ folder to open the Report-Designer UI.

3. Create a new data source with the driver by clicking Data -> Add Data Source -> Advanced -> JDBC (Custom) and then creating a new Avalara AvaTax connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

   • Custom Connection URL property: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:avalaraavatax: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     The primary method for performing basic authentication is to provide your login credentials, as follows:

     • User: Set this to your username.
     • Password: Set this to your password.

     Optionally, if you are making use of a sandbox environment, set the following:

     • UseSandbox: Set this to true if you are authenticating with a sandbox account.

     Authenticating Using Account Number and License Key

     Alternatively, you can authenticate using your account number and license key. Connect to data using the following:

     • AccountId: Set this to your Account Id. The Account Id is listed in the upper right hand corner of the admin console.
     • LicenseKey: Set this to your Avalara Avatax license key. You can generate a license key by logging into Avalara Avatax as an account administrator and navigating to Settings -> Reset License Key.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Avalara AvaTax JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.avalaraavatax.jar
     

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
     

     When you configure the JDBC URL, 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.

     Below is a typical JDBC URL:

     jdbc:avalaraavatax:User=MyUser;Password=MyPassword;

   • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.avalaraavatax.AvalaraAvataxDriver.
   • User Name: The username to authenticate with.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with.
   👁 Required connection properties defined in the JDBC URL. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

Add Avalara AvaTax Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with Avalara AvaTax data.

1. Add the Avalara AvaTax source to your report: Click Data -> Add Data Source -> JDBC and select the data source.

2. Configure the query. This article uses the one below:

   SELECT Id, TotalTax FROM Transactions WHERE Code = '051349'

   👁 The query to retrieve data, specified in the JDBC data source configuration wizard. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
3. Drag a chart onto your report and double-click it to edit the chart. Run the report to display the chart. You can use the results of this query to create a simple chart for the Transactions table.
4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.