Analyze Avalara AvaTax Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live Avalara AvaTax data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Avalara AvaTax, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Avalara AvaTax in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Avalara AvaTax from API Server

CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection 👁 Adding a connection
   
2. Select "Avalara AvaTax" 👁 Selecting a Connector (Salesforce is shown).
   
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Avalara AvaTax.

   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.
   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
   

Add Avalara AvaTax Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Avalara AvaTax, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Avalara AvaTax data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource 👁 Adding a new resource
   
2. Select the Avalara AvaTax connection 👁 Selecting a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next 👁 Selecting a Table (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to Avalara AvaTax from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the Avalara AvaTax Connection and Resource(s) 👁 Creating a new user
   

(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.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With the API Server configured, we can visualize Avalara AvaTax data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New 👁 Adding a new dashboard
   
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed 👁 Adding a new OData data source
   
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc 👁 Configuring the OData URL
   
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token 👁 Configuring the credentials
   
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize 👁 Selecting an entity to visualize (Salesforce is shown.)
   
6. Select fields and choose a chart type 👁 Visualizing data in Reveal (Salesforce is shown.)
   

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Avalara AvaTax data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Avalara AvaTax (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Avalara AvaTax data in tools that consume OData APIs.