Analyze Azure Data Catalog 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 Azure Data Catalog data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Azure Data Catalog, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Azure Data Catalog in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Azure Data Catalog 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 "Azure Data Catalog" 👁 Selecting a Connector (Salesforce is shown).
   
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Azure Data Catalog.

   You can optionally set the following to read the different catalog data returned from Azure Data Catalog.

   Connect Using OAuth Authentication

   You must use OAuth to authenticate with Azure Data Catalog. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Azure Data Catalog using the browser. For more information, refer to the OAuth section in the help documentation.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
   

Add Azure Data Catalog Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Azure Data Catalog, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Azure Data Catalog data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource 👁 Adding a new resource
   
2. Select the Azure Data Catalog 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 Azure Data Catalog from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the Azure Data Catalog 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 Azure Data Catalog 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 Azure Data Catalog data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Azure Data Catalog (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Azure Data Catalog data in tools that consume OData APIs.