Integrate Sage 300 Data in the Pentaho Report Designer

The CData JDBC driver for Sage 300 data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to Sage 300 data as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on Sage 300 data in Pentaho.

Connect and Create a Report

1. Copy the JAR file of the driver, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, to the \Report-Designer\lib\jdbc\ folder in the Pentaho directory.
2. Run the report-designer.bat file in the \Report-Designer\ folder to open the Report-Designer UI.

3. Create a new data source with the driver by clicking Data -> Add Data Source -> Advanced -> JDBC (Custom) and then creating a new Sage 300 connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

   • Custom Connection URL property: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:sage300: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     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.

     Below is a typical JDBC URL:

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

   • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.sage300.Sage300Driver.
   • User Name: The username to authenticate with.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with.
   👁 Required connection properties defined in the JDBC URL. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

Add Sage 300 Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with Sage 300 data.

1. Add the Sage 300 source to your report: Click Data -> Add Data Source -> JDBC and select the data source.

2. Configure the query. This article uses the one below:

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

   👁 The query to retrieve data, specified in the JDBC data source configuration wizard. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
3. Drag a chart onto your report and double-click it to edit the chart. Run the report to display the chart. You can use the results of this query to create a simple chart for the OEInvoices table.
4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.