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

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

   You can connect without setting any connection properties for your user credentials. Below are the minimum connection properties required to connect.

   • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
   • Tenant (optional): Set this if you wish to authenticate to a different tenant than your default. This is required to work with an organization not on your default Tenant.

   When you connect the Driver opens the MS Planner OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the Driver. The Driver then completes the OAuth process.

   1. Extracts the access token from the callback URL and authenticates requests.
   2. Obtains a new access token when the old one expires.
   3. Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation to be persisted across connections.
   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
   

Add Microsoft Planner Resource Definitions in API Server

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

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

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