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

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

   To successfully connect to your ERP instance, you must specify the following connection properties:

   • Url:the URL of the server hosting your ERP instance. For example, https://myserver.EpicorSaaS.com
   • ERPInstance: the name of your ERP instance.
   • User: the username of your account.
   • Password: the password of your account.
   • Service: the service you want to retrieve data from. For example, BaqSvc.

   In addition, you may also set the optional connection properties:

   • ApiKey: An optional key that may be required for connection to some services depending on your account configuration.
   • ApiVersion: Defaults to v1. May be set to v2 to use the newer Epicor API.
   • Company: Required if you set the ApiVersion to v2.
   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
   

Add Epicor Kinetic Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Epicor Kinetic, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Epicor Kinetic data.

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

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