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

⇱ Create NetSuite-Connected Dashboards in Grafana

Create NetSuite-Connected Dashboards in Grafana

👁 Cameron Leblanc
Cameron Leblanc
Senior Technology Evangelist
Connect to NetSuite Data via CData Connect AI in Grafana and create custom business dashboards with real-time access to NetSuite data.

Grafana is an open-source platform that allows users to analyze, monitor, and visualize telemetry from various data sources. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate access to NetSuite data for business dashboards. This article outlines the process of connecting to NetSuite using Connect AI and creating a basic dashboard from NetSuite data within Grafana.

CData Connect AI offers a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for NetSuite, enabling the creation of dashboards directly from live NetSuite data within Grafana, all without the need for data replication to a native database. As you build visualizations, Grafana generates SQL queries to gather data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to NetSuite. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver 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 Grafana

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

Visualize Live NetSuite Data in Grafana

To establish a connection from Grafana to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

  1. If you have not already done so, download and install Grafana for your operating system from the Grafana Website. Once installed, access Grafana at http://localhost:3000/.
  2. Log in to Grafana with your username and password for Grafana. If this is your first time logging in, the username is admin and the password is admin.
  3. On the navigation menu, click Sources > Add new connection. On this page, you can search for Microsoft SQL Server and select it as your data source. 👁 Adding a new Connection in Grafana
  4. Select Microsoft SQL Server and click Add new data source. 👁 Adding a new Connection in Grafana
  5. Enter a name for the new data source and then enter the following connection settings:
  6. Click Save & Test. A Database Connect OK message appears when you have a successful connection established.

Create a Dashboard

Once you create the data source for NetSuite, you can start building dashboards on NetSuite data. Start in the navigation menu and click Dashboards

  1. On the Dashboards page, click + Create dashboard, then click + Add visualization.
  2. This opens the Select data source window where you can select your created connection. 👁 Select your connection. (Salesforce shown)
  3. After selecting your connection, you can choose the tables and columns that you want to query for your visualization. Then press Run Query to run the generated query. 👁 Select the tables and columns you want to query. (Salesforce shown)
  4. After running your query, the resulting data is populated above the query editor. Here you can select the visualization that you want to use to present your data on the dashboard panel. 👁 Visualize your queried data. (Salesforce shown)
  5. When you have finished editing your panel, you can click Save dashboard to save the changes made to your Dashboard.

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