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

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

   Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Helpscout Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Helpscout.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Helpscout (see below).

   Helpscout API Profile Settings

   Generate an API key in Help Scout by going to Your Profile > Authentication > Generate an API Key.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
   

Add Helpscout Resource Definitions in API Server

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

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

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