Integrate Lakebase Data in the Pentaho Report Designer

The CData JDBC driver for Lakebase data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to Lakebase data as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on Lakebase data in Pentaho.

Connect and Create a Report

1. Copy the JAR file of the driver, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, to the \Report-Designer\lib\jdbc\ folder in the Pentaho directory.
2. Run the report-designer.bat file in the \Report-Designer\ folder to open the Report-Designer UI.

3. Create a new data source with the driver by clicking Data -> Add Data Source -> Advanced -> JDBC (Custom) and then creating a new Lakebase connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

   • Custom Connection URL property: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:lakebase: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     To connect to Databricks Lakebase, start by setting the following properties:
     • DatabricksInstance: The Databricks instance or server hostname, provided in the format instance-abcdef12-3456-7890-abcd-abcdef123456.database.cloud.databricks.com.
     • Server: The host name or IP address of the server hosting the Lakebase database.
     • Port (optional): The port of the server hosting the Lakebase database, set to 5432 by default.
     • Database (optional): The database to connect to after authenticating to the Lakebase Server, set to the authenticating user's default database by default.

     OAuth Client Authentication

     To authenicate using OAuth client credentials, you need to configure an OAuth client in your service principal. In short, you need to do the following:

     1. Create and configure a new service principal
     2. Assign permissions to the service principal
     3. Create an OAuth secret for the service principal

     For more information, refer to the Setting Up OAuthClient Authentication section in the Help documentation.

     OAuth PKCE Authentication

     To authenticate using the OAuth code type with PKCE (Proof Key for Code Exchange), set the following properties:

     • AuthScheme: OAuthPKCE.
     • User: The authenticating user's user ID.

     For more information, refer to the Help documentation.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Lakebase JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.lakebase.jar
     

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
     

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

     Below is a typical JDBC URL:

     jdbc:lakebase:DatabricksInstance=lakebase;Server=127.0.0.1;Port=5432;Database=my_database;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

   • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.lakebase.LakebaseDriver.
   • User Name: The username to authenticate with.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with.
   👁 Required connection properties defined in the JDBC URL. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

Add Lakebase Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with Lakebase data.

1. Add the Lakebase source to your report: Click Data -> Add Data Source -> JDBC and select the data source.

2. Configure the query. This article uses the one below:

   SELECT ShipName, ShipCity FROM Orders WHERE ShipCountry = 'USA'

   👁 The query to retrieve data, specified in the JDBC data source configuration wizard. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
3. Drag a chart onto your report and double-click it to edit the chart. Run the report to display the chart. You can use the results of this query to create a simple chart for the Orders table.
4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.