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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/mongodb-cloud-redash.rst

⇱ Query, Visualize, and Share live MongoDB Data in Redash

Query, Visualize, and Share live MongoDB Data in Redash

👁 Mohsin Turki
Mohsin Turki
Technical Marketing Engineer
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live MongoDB data in Redash for querying, visualizing, and sharing.

Redash is a collaboration tool that lets you query, visualize, and share your data. When paired with CData Connect AI, Redash gets access to live MongoDB data. This article demonstrates how to connect to MongoDB using Connect AI and work with live MongoDB data in Redash.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for MongoDB, allowing you to query data from MongoDB without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to MongoDB, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested MongoDB data quickly.

About MongoDB Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from MongoDB has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

MongoDB's flexibility means that it can be used as a transactional, operational, or analytical database. That means CData customers use our solutions to integrate their business data with MongoDB or integrate their MongoDB data with their data warehouse (or both). Customers also leverage our live connectivity options to analyze and report on MongoDB directly from their preferred tools, like Power BI and Tableau.

For more details on MongoDB use case and how CData enhances your MongoDB experience, check out our blog post: The Top 10 Real-World MongoDB Use Cases You Should Know in 2024.


Getting Started


Configure MongoDB Connectivity for Redash

Connectivity to MongoDB from Redash is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with MongoDB data in Redash, we start by creating and configuring a MongoDB connection.

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

    Set the Server, Database, User, and Password connection properties to connect to MongoDB. To access MongoDB collections as tables you can use automatic schema discovery or write your own schema definitions. Schemas are defined in .rsd files, which have a simple format. You can also execute free-form queries that are not tied to the schema.

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

Connect to MongoDB from Redash using Connect AI

To establish a connection from Redash to CData Connect AI using the Virtual SQL Server, follow these steps:

  1. Log into Redash.
  2. Click the settings widget on the top right.
  3. Click New Data Source.
  4. Select Microsoft SQL Server as the Data Source Type.
  5. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
    • Database Name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect AI data source you want to connect to (for example, Salesforce1).
    • Server: enter the virtual SQL Server host name (tds.cdata.com)
    • User: enter your CData Connect AI username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect AI interface. For example, [email protected].
    • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page.
    • Port: enter 14333
    👁 Configuring the connection to Connect AI from Redash.
  6. Click Create.
  7. Click Test Connection to ensure that the connection is configured properly.

You can now work with live MongoDB data in Redash.

Get CData Connect AI

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from Redash, try CData Connect AI today!