Klipfolio is an online dashboard platform designed to create real-time business dashboards, whether for your team or clients. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Quickbase data to create visualizations, reports, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on connecting to Quickbase within Connect AI and creating visualizations using Quickbase data in Klipfolio.
CData Connect AI offers a direct cloud-to-cloud interface for Quickbase, enabling you to construct reports from real-time Quickbase data data within Klipfolioโwithout the need for data replication to a database natively supported by Klipfolio. While building visualizations, Klipfolio generates SQL queries to fetch data. With optimized data processing capabilities out of the box, CData Connect AI efficiently directs all supported SQL operations (such as filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Quickbase, harnessing server-side processing to swiftly retrieve the requested Quickbase data data.
Configure Quickbase Connectivity for Klipfolio
Connectivity to Quickbase from Klipfolio is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Quickbase data from Klipfolio, we start by creating and configuring a Quickbase connection.
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Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
๐ Adding a Connection
- Select "Quickbase" from the Add Connection panel
๐ Selecting a data source
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Quickbase.
User Authentication Method
To authenticate with user credentials, specify the following connection properties:
- Set the User and Password.
- If your application requires an ApplicationToken;, you must provide it otherwise an error will be thrown. You can find the ApplicationToken under SpecificApp > Settings > App management > App properties > Advanced settings > Security options > Manage Application Token.
User Token Authentication
To authenticate with a user token, specify the following connection properties:
- Set UserToken and you are ready to connect. You can find the UserToken under Quick Base > My Preferences > My User Information > Manage User Tokens.
๐ Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
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Click Save & Test
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Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Quickbase Connection page and update the User-based permissions.
๐ 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.
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Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
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On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
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Give the PAT a name and click Create.
๐ Creating a new PAT
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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 Quickbase data from Klipfolio.
Connect to Quickbase from Klipfolio
The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Klipfolio to create a new Quickbase data source.
- Open Klipfolio
- Click in Data Sources to add a new data source
- Search for and select MSSQL as the Service
๐ Adding a new datasource.
- Click "Create a custom MSSQL data source"
- Configure the data source by setting the MSSQL connection properties:
- Host: tds.cdata.com
- Port: 14333
- Database: your database (e.g., QuickBase1)
- Driver: MS SQL
- Username: a Connect AI user (e.g. [email protected])
- Password: the above user's PAT
- SQL Query: any query to retrieve data (e.g. SELECT * FROM SampleTable_1 )
- Select the checkbox to "Include column headers"
- Select the checkbox to "Use SSL/TLS"
๐ Configuring the connection to Connect AI.
- Click "Get data" to preview the Quickbase data before building a data model.
Build a Data Model
After retrieving the data, click the checkbox to "Model your data" and click "Continue." In the new window, configure your data model.
- Confirm that the model includes all columns you wish to work with
- Name your model
- (optional) Set the Description
- Set "Header in row" to 1
- Click the toggle to "Exclude data before row" and set the value to 2
- Click "Save and Exit"
๐ Configuring the data model.
Create a Metric
With the data modeled, we are ready to create a Metric (or visualization) of the data to be used in the Klipfolio platform for dashboards, reporting, and more.
- Click "Create metrics"
- Select a Data source
- Select a Metric value and default aggregation
- Select Segmentation(s)
- Select a Date & time
- Select a Data shape
- Configure the Display settings
- Click Save
๐ Configuring a Metric
- Navigate to your Metric and further configure the visualization
๐ A configured Metric
SQL Access to Quickbase Data from Cloud Applications
Now you have a Metric built from live Quickbase data. You can add it to a new dashboard, share, and more. Easily create more data sources and new visualizations, produce reports, and more โ all without replicating Quickbase data.
To get SQL data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect AI.