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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/domino-cloud-powerbi-service-gateway.rst

⇱ Visualize Live HCL Domino Data in the Power BI Service

Visualize Live HCL Domino Data in the Power BI Service

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live HCL Domino data and create custom reports in the Power BI Service through the On-Premises Gateway.

Power BI transforms your company's data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant access to HCL Domino data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to build and publish a dataset from HCL Domino data in Power BI and then create reports on HCL Domino data in the Power BI service.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL interface for HCL Domino, allowing you to easily build reports from live HCL Domino data in Power BI — with no need to replicate the data. As you build visualizations, Power BI generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to HCL Domino, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return HCL Domino data.

NOTE: You can also import HCL Domino data into Power BI through Connect AI (instead of using the on-premise gateway). Read how in the related Knowledge Base article.

Configure HCL Domino Connectivity for Power BI

Connectivity to HCL Domino from Power BI is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with HCL Domino data from Power BI, we start by creating and configuring a HCL Domino connection.

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

    Connecting to Domino

    To connect to Domino data, set the following properties:

    • URL: The host name or IP of the server hosting the Domino database. Include the port of the server hosting the Domino database. For example: http://sampleserver:1234/
    • DatabaseScope: The name of a scope in the Domino Web UI. The driver exposes forms and views for the schema governed by the specified scope. In the Domino Admin UI, select the Scopes menu in the sidebar. Set this property to the name of an existing scope.

    Authenticating with Domino

    Domino supports authenticating via login credentials or an Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) OAuth application:

    Login Credentials

    To authenticate with login credentials, set the following properties:

    • AuthScheme: Set this to "OAuthPassword"
    • User: The username of the authenticating Domino user
    • Password: The password associated with the authenticating Domino user

    The driver uses the login credentials to automatically perform an OAuth token exchange.

    EntraID (formerly AzureAD)

    This authentication method uses Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) as an IdP to obtain a JWT token. You need to create a custom OAuth application in Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) and configure it as an IdP. To do so, follow the instructions in the Help documentation. Then set the following properties:

    • AuthScheme: Set this to "EntraID (formerly AzureAD)"
    • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
    • OAuthClientId: The Client ID obtained when setting up the custom OAuth application.
    • OAuthClientSecret: The Client secret obtained when setting up the custom OAuth application.
    • CallbackURL: The redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: https://localhost:33333
    • AzureTenant: The Microsoft Online tenant being used to access data. Supply either a value in the form companyname.microsoft.com or the tenant ID.

      The tenant ID is the same as the directory ID shown in the Azure Portal's Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) > Properties page.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add HCL Domino 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 HCL Domino data from Power BI.

Connecting to Connect AI from Power BI

To connect to and visualize live HCL Domino data in the Power BI service, install the on-premise data gateway, add a data source to the gateway from the Power BI service, and publish a dataset from Power BI Desktop to the service.

Install the On-Premises Data Gateway

The Microsoft on-premise data gateway provides secure data transfer between connected data sources and various cloud-based Microsoft tools and platforms. You can read more about the gateway in the Microsoft documentation.

You can download and install the gateway from the Power BI service:

  1. Log in to PowerBI.com.
  2. Click the Download menu and click Data Gateway. 👁 Download the Data Gateway
  3. Follow the instructions for installation, making note of the name of the gateway.

Add HCL Domino as a Data Source to the Power BI Service

Once you have installed the data gateway, you add Connect AI as a data source to the Power BI service:

  1. Log in to PowerBI.com.
  2. Click the Settings menu and click "Manage gateways." 👁 Settings -> Manage gateways
  3. Click "ADD DATA SOURCE" and configure the connection to Connect AI:

    • Set Data Source Name to something like ConnectCloudDomino.
    • Choose SQL Server as the Data Source Type.
    • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333.
    • Set Database to the name of your HCL Domino connection (e.g. Domino1).
    • Set Authentication Method to Basic.
    • Set Username to a Connect AI user (e.g. [email protected])
    • Set Password to the PAT for the user above.

Publish a Dataset from Power BI Desktop

With the gateway installed and Connect AI added as a datasource to the Power BI service, you can publish a dataset from Power BI Desktop to the service.

  1. Open Power BI, click Get Data -> More, then select SQL Server database, and click Connect.
    2. 👁 Create a new connection in Power BI
  2. Set the connection properties and click OK.
    • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333.
    • Set Database to the name of your HCL Domino connection (e.g. Domino1).
    • Set Data Connectivity mode to DirectQuery*.
    👁 Connect to CData Connect AI instance
    * DirectQuery enables live query processing and real-time visualizations of HCL Domino data.
  3. In the authentication wizard, select Database, set the User name and Password properties, and click Connect.
    4. 👁 Authenticate the connection
  4. Select the table(s) to visualize in the Navigator dialog.
  5. In the Query Editor, you can customize your dataset by filtering, sorting, and summarizing HCL Domino columns. Click Edit to open the query editor. Right-click a raw to filter the rows. Right-click a column header to perform options like the following:
    • Change column data types
    • Remove a column
    • Group by columns

    Power BI detects each column's data type from the HCL Domino metadata reported by Connect AI.

    Power BI records your modifications to the query in the Applied Steps section, adjusting the underlying data retrieval query that is executed to the remote HCL Domino data. When you click Close and Apply, Power BI executes the data Retrieval query.

    Otherwise, click Load to pull the data into Power BI.

  6. Define any relationships between the selected entities on the Relationships tab.
  7. Click Publish (from the Home menu) and select a Workspace.

Build Reports and Dashboards on HCL Domino Data in the Power BI Service

Now that you have published a dataset to the Power BI service, you can create new reports and dashboards based on the published data:

  1. Log in to PowerBI.com.
  2. Click Workspaces and select a workspace.
  3. Click Create and select Report.
  4. Select the published dataset for the report. 👁 Select a dataset
  5. Choose fields and visualizations to add to your report. 👁 Visualizing HCL Domino data in the Power BI service

Live Access to HCL Domino Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live HCL Domino data from the Power BI service. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating HCL Domino data.

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect AI.