Build Blackbaud FE NXT-Connected Visualizations in datapine

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

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

Configure Blackbaud FE NXT Connectivity for datapine

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

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

2. Select "Blackbaud FE NXT" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Blackbaud FE NXT.

   Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties.

   See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Blackbaud FE NXT 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 Blackbaud FE NXT data from datapine.

Connecting to Blackbaud FE NXT from datapine

Once you configure your connection to Blackbaud FE NXT in Connect AI, you are ready to connect to Blackbaud FE NXT 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. FinancialEdgeNXT1)
   • 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 Blackbaud FE NXT Data in datapine

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

Having connect to Blackbaud FE NXT from datapine, you are now able to visualize and analyze real-time Blackbaud FE NXT 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!