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

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

   You can connect to Google APIs on behalf of individual users or on behalf of a domain. Google uses the OAuth authentication standard. See the "Getting Started" section of the help documentation for a guide.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
   

Add Google Contacts Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Google Contacts, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Google Contacts data.

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

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