Sage 300 Reporting in OBIEE with the Sage 300 JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for Sage 300 is a standard database driver that can integrate real-time access to Sage 300 data into your Java-based reporting server. This article shows how to deploy the driver to Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) and create reports on Sage 300 data that reflect any changes.

Deploy the JDBC Driver

Follow the steps below to add the JDBC driver to WebLogic's classpath.

For WebLogic 12.2.1, simply place the driver JAR and .lic file into DOMAIN_HOME\lib; for example, ORACLE_HOME\user_projects\domains\MY_DOMAIN\lib. These files will be added to the server classpath at startup.

You can also manually add the driver to the classpath: This is required for earlier versions. Prepend the following to PRE_CLASSPATH in setDomainEnv.cmd (Windows) or setDomainEnv.sh (Unix). This script is located in the bin subfolder of the folder for that domain. For example: ORACLE_HOME\user_projects\domains\MY_DOMAIN\bin.

set PRE_CLASSPATH=your-installation-directory\lib\cdata.jdbc.sage300.jar;%PRE_CLASSPATH%

Restart all servers; for example, run the stop and start commands in DOMAIN_HOME\bitools\bin.

Create a JDBC Data Source for Sage 300

After deploying the JDBC driver, you can create a JDBC data source from BI Publisher.

1. Log into BI Publisher, at the URL http://localhost:9502/analytics, for example, and click Administration -> Manage BI Publisher.
2. Click JDBC Connection -> Add Data Source.
3. Enter the following information:
   • Data Source Name: Enter the name that users will create connections to in their reports.
   • Driver Type: Select Other.
   • Database DriverClass: Enter the driver class, cdata.jdbc.sage300.Sage300Driver.
   • Connection String: Enter the JDBC URL.

     Sage 300 requires some initial setup in order to communicate over the Sage 300 Web API.

     • Set up the security groups for the Sage 300 user. Give the Sage 300 user access to the option under Security Groups (per each module required).
     • Edit both web.config files in the /Online/Web and /Online/WebApi folders; change the key AllowWebApiAccessForAdmin to true. Restart the webAPI app-pool for the settings to take.
     • Once the user access is configured, click https://server/Sage300WebApi/ to ensure access to the web API.

     Authenticate to Sage 300 using Basic authentication.

     Connect Using Basic Authentication

     You must provide values for the following properties to successfully authenticate to Sage 300. Note that the provider reuses the session opened by Sage 300 using cookies. This means that your credentials are used only on the first request to open the session. After that, cookies returned from Sage 300 are used for authentication.

     • Url: Set this to the url of the server hosting Sage 300. Construct a URL for the Sage 300 Web API as follows: {protocol}://{host-application-path}/v{version}/{tenant}/ For example, http://localhost/Sage300WebApi/v1.0/-/.
     • User: Set this to the username of your account.
     • Password: Set this to the password of your account.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Sage 300 JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.sage300.jar
     

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
     

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

     A typical JDBC URL is below:

     jdbc:sage300:User=SAMPLE;Password=password;URL=http://127.0.0.1/Sage300WebApi/v1/-/;Company=SAMINC;

   • Username: Enter the username.
   • Password: Enter the password.
4. In the Security section, select the allowed user roles. 👁 The required settings for a JDBC data source. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

Create Real-Time Sage 300 Reports

You can now create reports and analyses based on real-time Sage 300 data. Follow the steps below to use the standard report wizard to create an interactive report that reflects any changes to Sage 300 data.

1. On the global header, click New -> Data Model.
2. On the Diagram tab, select SQL query in the menu.
3. Enter a name for the query and in the Data Source menu select the Sage 300 JDBC data source you created.
4. Select standard SQL and enter a query like the following:

   SELECT InvoiceUniquifier, ApprovedLimit FROM OEInvoices WHERE AllowPartialShipments = 'Yes'

   👁 The SQL query to be used to create the data set for the report's data model. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
5. Click View Data to generate the sample data to be used as you build your report.
6. Select the number of rows to include in the sample data, click View, and then click Save As Sample Data.
7. Click Create Report -> Use Data Model.
8. Select Guide Me and on the Select Layout page select the report objects you want to include. In this example we select Chart and Table.
9. Drop a numeric column like ApprovedLimit onto the Drop Value Here box on the y-axis. Drop a dimension column like InvoiceUniquifier onto the Drop Label Here box on the x-axis. 👁 The dimensions and measures for a chart. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
10. Click Refresh to pick up any changes to the Sage 300 data. 👁 An interactive, refresh-on-demand report. (Salesforce is shown.)