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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/odata-cloud-metabase.rst

⇱ How to integrate Metabase with OData Services

How to integrate Metabase with OData Services

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live OData services and create an interactive dashboard in Metabase from OData services.

Metabase is an open source data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive dashboards. When paired with CData Connect AI, users can easily create visualizations and dashboards linked to live OData services. This article describes how to connect to OData and build a simple visualization using OData services.

CData Connect provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for OData, allowing you to easily integrate with live OData services in Metabase — without replicating the data. Connect looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Metabase and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to OData, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return OData services.

About OData Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live OData services data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Access OData versions 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0, working with legacy services and the latest features and capabilities.
  • Leverage advanced query options, including $filter, $select, and $expand, enhancing data retrieval from 3rd party tools.
  • Use Server-side execution of aggregation and grouping to minimize data transfer and boost performance.
  • Authenticate securely using a variety of schemes, including Azure AD, digest, negotiate, NTLM, OAuth, and more means secure authentication with every connection.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to manage OData service entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

Customers use CData's solutions to regularly integrate their OData services with preferred tools, such as Power BI, MicroStrategy, or Tableau, and to replicate data from OData services to their databases or data warehouses.


Getting Started


Configure OData Connectivity for Metabase

Connectivity to OData from Metabase is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with OData services from Metabase, we start by creating and configuring a OData connection.

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

    The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid OData user credentials. In addition, specify a URL to a valid OData server organization root or OData services file.

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

Connect to CData Connect AI from Metabase

After creating the connection in Connect AI, navigate to your Metabase instance. Use the SQL Server interface to connect to Connect AI.

  1. Navigate to the administration screen (Settings -> Admin) and click "Add Database" from the "Databases" tab 👁 Adding a new database connection to Metabase.
  2. Configure the connection to Connect AI and click "Save"
    • Database type: Select "SQL Server"
    • Name: Name the connection (e.g. "OData (Connect AI)")
    • Host: tds.cdata.com
    • Port: 14333
    • Database name: The name of the connection you just created (e.g. OData1)
    • Username: A Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
    • Password: The PAT previously created
    • Click to Use a secure connection (SSL)
    👁 Configuring the connection to Connect AI.

Execute OData Services with Metabase

Once you configure the connection to Connect AI, you can query OData and build visualizations.

  1. Use the "Write SQL" tool to retrieve the OData services 👁 Click the 'Write SQL' button.
  2. Write a SQL query based on the OData connection in CData Connect AI, e.g. 

    SELECT Orders.Freight, Customers.ContactName FROM Customers INNER JOIN Orders ON Customers.CustomerId=Orders.CustomerId
    👁 Collected data (Salesforce is shown).
  3. Navigate to the "Visualization" screen, choose a visualization, and configure the visualization 👁 Collected data (Salesforce is shown).

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have built a simple visualization from OData services in Metabase. You can continue to work with live OData services in Metabase just like you would any SQL Server database. For more information on creating a live connection to OData (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect AI page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live OData services in Metabase today.