Analyze SAP ByDesign Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live SAP ByDesign data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for SAP ByDesign, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to SAP ByDesign in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to SAP ByDesign from API Server

CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection 👁 Adding a connection
   
2. Select "SAP ByDesign" 👁 Selecting a Connector (Salesforce is shown).
   
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAP ByDesign.

   Set the following connection properties to connect to SAP ByDesign.

   • Url: Set this to the Url of your SAP ByDesign site. For example, https://test.sapbydesign.com
   • User: Set this to the username of your account.
   • Password: Set this to the password of your account.
   • CustomService or AnalyticsService: Only one of these must be specified. If you have a custom service you want to retrieve data from, specify CustomService. If you want to retrieve the reports of a analytical service, specify AnalyticsService.
     If neither is specified, 'cc_home_analytics.svc' will used as a default for the AnalyticsService property. If you are not sure what service to specify, you can always query the Services view to list available services.
   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
   

Add SAP ByDesign Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to SAP ByDesign, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for SAP ByDesign data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource 👁 Adding a new resource
   
2. Select the SAP ByDesign connection 👁 Selecting a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next 👁 Selecting a Table (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to SAP ByDesign from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the SAP ByDesign Connection and Resource(s) 👁 Creating a new user
   

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With the API Server configured, we can visualize SAP ByDesign data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New 👁 Adding a new dashboard
   
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed 👁 Adding a new OData data source
   
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc 👁 Configuring the OData URL
   
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token 👁 Configuring the credentials
   
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize 👁 Selecting an entity to visualize (Salesforce is shown.)
   
6. Select fields and choose a chart type 👁 Visualizing data in Reveal (Salesforce is shown.)
   

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live SAP ByDesign data. For more information on creating OData feeds from SAP ByDesign (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live SAP ByDesign data in tools that consume OData APIs.