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

Connect to Blackbaud FE NXT 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 "Blackbaud FE NXT" 👁 Selecting a Connector (Salesforce is shown).
   
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).
   

Add Blackbaud FE NXT Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Blackbaud FE NXT, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Blackbaud FE NXT data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource 👁 Adding a new resource
   
2. Select the Blackbaud FE NXT 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 Blackbaud FE NXT from Reveal through API Server.

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