VOOZH about

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/odoo-odata-spotfire.rst

⇱ Visualize Odoo Data in TIBCO Spotfire through OData

Visualize Odoo Data in TIBCO Spotfire through OData

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Integrate Odoo data into dashboards in TIBCO Spotfire.

OData is a major protocol enabling real-time communication among cloud-based, mobile, and other online applications. The CData API Server provides Odoo data to OData consumers like TIBCO Spotfire. This article shows how to use the API Server and Spotfire's built-in support for OData to access Odoo data in real time.

About Odoo Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from Odoo has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Access live data from both Odoo API 8.0+ and Odoo.sh Cloud ERP.
  • Extend the native Odoo features with intelligent handling of many-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many data properties. CData's connectivity solutions also intelligently handle complex data properties within Odoo. In addition to columns with simple values like text and dates, there are also columns that contain multiple values on each row. The driver decodes these kinds of values differently, depending upon the type of column the value comes from:
    • Many-to-one columns are references to a single row within another model. Within CData solutions, many-to-one columns are represented as integers, whose value is the ID to which they refer in the other model.
    • Many-to-many columns are references to many rows within another model. Within CData solutions, many-to-many columns are represented as text containing a comma-separated list of integers. Each value in that list is the ID of a row that is being referenced.
    • One-to-many columns are references to many rows within another model - they are similar to many-to-many columns (comma-separated lists of integers), except that each row in the referenced model must belong to only one in the main model.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to call server-side RFCs within Odoo.

Users frequently integrate Odoo with analytics tools such as Power BI and Qlik Sense, and leverage our tools to replicate Odoo data to databases or data warehouses.


Getting Started


Set Up the API Server

If you have not already done so, download the CData API Server. Once you have installed the API Server, follow the steps below to begin producing secure Odoo OData services:

Connect to Odoo

To work with Odoo data from TIBCO Spotfire, we start by creating and configuring a Odoo connection. Follow the steps below to configure the API Server to connect to Odoo data:

  1. First, navigate to the Connections page.
  2. Click Add Connection and then search for and select the Odoo connection. 👁 Selecting a data source (SQLite is shown)
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Odoo.

    To connect, set the Url to a valid Odoo site, User and Password to the connection details of the user you are connecting with, and Database to the Odoo database.

    👁 Connecting to a datasource (SQLite is shown)
  4. After configuring the connection, click Save & Test to confirm a successful connection.

Configure API Server Users

Next, create a user to access your Odoo data through the API Server. You can add and configure users on the Users page. Follow the steps below to configure and create a user:

  1. On the Users page, click Add User to open the Add User dialog.
  2. Next, set the Role, Username, and Privileges properties and then click Add User. 👁 Configure a new user
  3. An Authtoken is then generated for the user. You can find the Authtoken and other information for each user on the Users page: 👁 API Server user settings

Creating API Endpoints for Odoo

Having created a user, you are ready to create API endpoints for the Odoo tables:

  1. First, navigate to the API page and then click Add Table . 👁 Add tables
  2. Select the connection you wish to access and click Next. 👁 Select the connection (SQLite is shown)
  3. With the connection selected, create endpoints by selecting each table and then clicking Confirm. 👁 Adding tables from the connection (SQLite is shown)

Gather the OData Url

Having configured a connection to Odoo data, created a user, and added resources to the API Server, you now have an easily accessible REST API based on the OData protocol for those resources. From the API page in API Server, you can view and copy the API Endpoints for the API:

👁 API Endpoints

Create Data Visualizations on External Odoo Data

  1. Open Spotfire and click Add Data Tables -> OData.
  2. In the OData Connection dialog, enter the following information:
    • Service URL: Enter the API Server's OData endpoint. For example: 
      http://localhost:8080/api.rsc
    • Authentication Method: Select Username and Password.
    • Username: Enter the username of an API Server user. You can create API users on the Security tab of the administration console.
    • Password: Enter the authtoken of an API Server user.
    👁 Required connection settings to connect to the API Server.
  3. Select the tables and columns you want to add to the dashboard. This example uses res_users. 👁 API Server API Entities. (Salesforce is shown.)
  4. If you want to work with the live data, click the Keep Data Table External option. This option enables your dashboards to reflect changes to the data in real time.

    If you want to load the data into memory and process the data locally, click the Import Data Table option. This option is better for offline use or if a slow network connection is making your dashboard less interactive.

  5. After adding tables, the Recommended Visualizations wizard is displayed. When you select a table, Spotfire uses the column data types to detect number, time, and category columns. This example uses email in the Numbers section and name in the Categories section.👁 Recommended visualizations for the imported data table. (Salesforce is shown.)

After adding several visualizations in the Recommended Visualizations wizard, you can make other modifications to the dashboard. For example, you can apply a filter: After clicking the Filter button, the available filters for each query are displayed in the Filters pane.