VOOZH about

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/netsuite-cloud-cognos-analytics.rst

⇱ Analyze NetSuite Data in Cognos Analytics

Analyze NetSuite Data in Cognos Analytics

👁 Dibyendu Datta
Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist
Use CData Connect AI to connect to NetSuite Data from Cognos Analytics and analyze live NetSuite data.

Cognos Analytics, powered by IBM Watson®, empowers users to cleanse and establish connections with their data while creating visualizations. When integrated with CData Connect AI, users gain immediate, real-time connectivity between cloud-based data sources and Cognos Analytics, facilitating data management, visualization, analytics, and more. This article provides step-by-step guidance on connecting to NetSuite via CData Connect AI and subsequently analyzing NetSuite data within Cognos Analytics.

NOTE: These instructions require Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 or higher

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for NetSuite, enabling users to perform real-time analysis on NetSuite data within Cognos without the need to replicate data to a natively supported database. Equipped with built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to NetSuite. This harnesses server-side processing to promptly provide the requested NetSuite data.

About NetSuite Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Oracle NetSuite. Customers use CData connectivity to:

  • Access all editions of NetSuite, including Standard, CRM, and OneWorld.
  • Connect with all versions of the SuiteTalk API (SOAP-based) and SuiteQL, which functions like SQL, enabling easier data querying and manipulation.
  • Access predefined and custom reports through support for Saved Searches.
  • Securely authenticate with Token-based and OAuth 2.0, ensuring compatibility and security for all use cases.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to perform functional actions like uploading or downloading files, attaching or detaching records or relationships, retrieving roles, getting extra table or column info, getting job results, and more.

Customers use CData solutions to access live NetSuite data from their preferred analytics tools, Power BI and Excel. They also use CData's solutions to integrate their NetSuite data into comprehensive databases and data warehouse using CData Sync directly or leveraging CData's compatibility with other applications like Azure Data Factory. CData also helps Oracle NetSuite customers easily write apps that can pull data from and push data to NetSuite, allowing organizations to integrate data from other sources with NetSuite.

For more information about our Oracle NetSuite solutions, read our blog: Drivers in Focus Part 2: Replicating and Consolidating ... NetSuite Accounting Data.


Getting Started


Configure NetSuite Connectivity for Cognos Analytics

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

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

    The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid NetSuite user credentials. In addition, the AccountId must be set to the ID of a company account that can be used by the specified User. The RoleId can be optionally specified to log in the user with limited permissions.

    See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for more information on connecting to NetSuite.

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

Connect to NetSuite from Cognos Analytics

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Cognos Analytics to analyze live NetSuite data.

Download and install the CData Connect AI JDBC driver

  1. Open the Integrations page of CData Connect AI.
  2. Search for and select JDBC.
  3. Download and run the setup file.
  4. When the installation is complete, copy the JAR file (cdata.jdbc.connect.jar) from the installation directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\CData\JDBC Driver for CData Connect\lib) to the "drivers" folder in your Cognos Analytics installation directory.

Configure the Connection to CData Connect AI

  1. Open IBM Cognos and navigate to Manage > Data server connections.
  2. Click the icon to add a data server.
  3. Select CData Connect AI.
  4. Set JDBC URL to the appropriate connection string. For example: 
     jdbc:connect:AuthScheme=Basic;user=username;password=PAT;
  5. Set Driver class name to "cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver"
  6. Create and store authenticate credentials by selecting an authentication method
    • Set Username to your CData Connect AI username (e.g., [email protected])
    • Set Password to the PAT you previously generated.
  7. Click Test connection to confirm that the connection succeeds. 👁 Connecting to CData Connect AI from Cognos Analytics

At this point, you are ready to analyze and visualize NetSuite data in Cognos Analytics. For more information about using Cognos Analytics, please refer to the Cognos Analytics documentation.

Live Access to NetSuite Data for Analytics

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live NetSuite data from Cognos Analytics. You can create new visualizations, build reports, and more — without replicating NetSuite data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.