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

⇱ Create Dashboards and Visualize Live NetSuite Data in Geckoboard

Create Dashboards and Visualize Live NetSuite Data in Geckoboard

👁 Dibyendu Datta
Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live NetSuite data and create dashboards for real-time monitoring and visualization in Geckoboard.

Geckoboard is a business intelligence tool that simplifies the visualization of key performance indicators (KPIs) by creating live dashboards. It allows teams to consolidate data from various sources - such as Salesforce, Snowflake, Google Analytics, and spreadsheets - and display it in a visually engaging and easy-to-understand format. Designed for simplicity and clarity, Geckoboard helps businesses monitor performance, track goals, and make data-driven decisions.

When used with CData Connect AI, you gain instant, cloud-to-cloud access to NetSuite data from Geckoboard for dashboards, monitoring, visualizations, and more. This article explains how to connect to NetSuite and create visualizations using NetSuite data in Geckoboard.

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


CData Connect AI offers a seamless SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for NetSuite, enabling you to effortlessly create dashboards and visualizations using live NetSuite data in Geckoboard. While building visualizations, Geckoboard requires SQL queries to retrieve the necessary data. With built-in optimized data processing, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (such as filters and JOINs) directly to NetSuite, utilizing server-side processing for fast and efficient data retrieval of NetSuite data.

Configure NetSuite connectivity for Geckoboard

Connectivity to NetSuite from Geckoboard is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with NetSuite data from Geckoboard, 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 Geckoboard.

Connect live NetSuite data in Geckoboard

Follow these steps to establish a connection from Geckoboard to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API.

  1. Log into Geckoboard
  2. Add a custom dashboard name and click Add widget 👁 Click on Add widget.
  3. Search for "Databases" in the Connect your data search bar 👁 Search and click on Databases.
  4. Select SQL Server as the Database type 👁 Select SQL Server.
  5. Fill in the connection details:
    • Connection name: enter a name for the connection to CData Connect AI
    • Host: enter the Virtual SQL Server endpoint: tds.cdata.com
    • Port: : enter 14333
    • Database name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect AI data source you want to connect to (for example, NetSuite1)
    • Username: 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
    👁 Configuring the connection to the Virtual SQL Server API
  6. Click Connect

After successfully configuring your connection, you can query and visualize your NetSuite data.

Visualize live NetSuite data in Geckoboard

To visualize live NetSuite data in Geckoboard, follow these steps:

  1. Write an SQL query to select the specific NetSuite data needed for visualization in Paste your SQL query compiler screen 👁 Write an SQL query to select specific NetSuite data.

    2. Depending on your use case, you can also generate the desired SQL query using the Data Copilot or Query Builder features of CData Connect AI

    👁 Generate an SQL query using AI Generator in Connect AI.
  2. Choose the visualization type (Line Chart, Bar Chart, or Column Chart) that best suits your business requirements 👁 Choose the visualization type.
  3. The selected chart will be displayed on Geckoboard 👁 Chart is displayed.
  4. Click the menu (three dots in the top-right corner of the graph) and select Edit to modify the SQL query or set a refresh interval for the chart 👁 Edit the widget.

    5. Live access to NetSuite data from cloud applications

    At this stage, you have established a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live NetSuite data in Geckoboard. This enables you to create dashboards to monitor and visualize your data seamlessly.

    For more details on accessing live data from over 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources through cloud applications like Geckoboard, visit our Connect AI page.