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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/dataverse-cloud-geckoboard.rst

⇱ Create Dashboards and Visualize Live Microsoft Dataverse Data in Geckoboard

Create Dashboards and Visualize Live Microsoft Dataverse Data in Geckoboard

👁 Dibyendu Datta
Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live Microsoft Dataverse data and create dashboards for real-time monitoring and visualization in Geckoboard.

Geckoboard is a business intelligence tool that simplifies the visualization of key performance indicators (KPIs) by creating live dashboards. It allows teams to consolidate data from various sources - such as Salesforce, Snowflake, Google Analytics, and spreadsheets - and display it in a visually engaging and easy-to-understand format. Designed for simplicity and clarity, Geckoboard helps businesses monitor performance, track goals, and make data-driven decisions.

When used with CData Connect AI, you gain instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Microsoft Dataverse data from Geckoboard for dashboards, monitoring, visualizations, and more. This article explains how to connect to Microsoft Dataverse and create visualizations using Microsoft Dataverse data in Geckoboard.

About Microsoft Dataverse Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Microsoft Dataverse (formerly the Common Data Service). Customers use CData connectivity to:

  • Access both Dataverse Entities and Dataverse system tables to work with exactly the data they need.
  • Authenticate securely with Microsoft Dataverse in a variety of ways, including Azure Active Directory, Azure Managed Service Identity credentials, and Azure Service Principal using either a client secret or a certificate.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to manage Microsoft Dataverse entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

CData customers use our Dataverse connectivity solutions for a variety of reasons, whether they're looking to replicate their data into a data warehouse (alongside other data sources)or analyze live Dataverse data from their preferred data tools inside the Microsoft ecosystem (Power BI, Excel, etc.) or with external tools (Tableau, Looker, etc.).


Getting Started


CData Connect AI offers a seamless SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Microsoft Dataverse, enabling you to effortlessly create dashboards and visualizations using live Microsoft Dataverse data in Geckoboard. While building visualizations, Geckoboard requires SQL queries to retrieve the necessary data. With built-in optimized data processing, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (such as filters and JOINs) directly to Microsoft Dataverse, utilizing server-side processing for fast and efficient data retrieval of Microsoft Dataverse data.

Configure Microsoft Dataverse connectivity for Geckoboard

Connectivity to Microsoft Dataverse from Geckoboard is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Microsoft Dataverse data from Geckoboard, we start by creating and configuring a Microsoft Dataverse connection.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Microsoft Dataverse" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Microsoft Dataverse.

    You can connect without setting any connection properties for your user credentials. Below are the minimum connection properties required to connect.

    • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
    • OrganizationUrl: Set this to the organization URL you are connecting to, such as https://myorganization.crm.dynamics.com.
    • Tenant (optional): Set this if you wish to authenticate to a different tenant than your default. This is required to work with an organization not on your default Tenant.

    When you connect the Common Data Service OAuth endpoint opens in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions. The OAuth process completes automatically.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Microsoft Dataverse 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 Microsoft Dataverse data from Geckoboard.

Connect live Microsoft Dataverse data in Geckoboard

Follow these steps to establish a connection from Geckoboard to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API.

  1. Log into Geckoboard
  2. Add a custom dashboard name and click Add widget 👁 Click on Add widget.
  3. Search for "Databases" in the Connect your data search bar 👁 Search and click on Databases.
  4. Select SQL Server as the Database type 👁 Select SQL Server.
  5. Fill in the connection details:
    • Connection name: enter a name for the connection to CData Connect AI
    • Host: enter the Virtual SQL Server endpoint: tds.cdata.com
    • Port: : enter 14333
    • Database name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect AI data source you want to connect to (for example, CDS1)
    • Username: enter your CData Connect AI username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect AI interface. For example, [email protected]
    • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page
    👁 Configuring the connection to the Virtual SQL Server API
  6. Click Connect

After successfully configuring your connection, you can query and visualize your Microsoft Dataverse data.

Visualize live Microsoft Dataverse data in Geckoboard

To visualize live Microsoft Dataverse data in Geckoboard, follow these steps:

  1. Write an SQL query to select the specific Microsoft Dataverse data needed for visualization in Paste your SQL query compiler screen 👁 Write an SQL query to select specific Microsoft Dataverse data.

    2. Depending on your use case, you can also generate the desired SQL query using the Data Copilot or Query Builder features of CData Connect AI

    👁 Generate an SQL query using AI Generator in Connect AI.
  2. Choose the visualization type (Line Chart, Bar Chart, or Column Chart) that best suits your business requirements 👁 Choose the visualization type.
  3. The selected chart will be displayed on Geckoboard 👁 Chart is displayed.
  4. Click the menu (three dots in the top-right corner of the graph) and select Edit to modify the SQL query or set a refresh interval for the chart 👁 Edit the widget.

    5. Live access to Microsoft Dataverse data from cloud applications

    At this stage, you have established a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Microsoft Dataverse data in Geckoboard. This enables you to create dashboards to monitor and visualize your data seamlessly.

    For more details on accessing live data from over 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources through cloud applications like Geckoboard, visit our Connect AI page.