Grafana is an open-source platform that allows users to analyze, monitor, and visualize telemetry from various data sources. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate access to SAP SuccessFactors data for business dashboards. This article outlines the process of connecting to SAP SuccessFactors using Connect AI and creating a basic dashboard from SAP SuccessFactors data within Grafana.
CData Connect AI offers a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for SAP SuccessFactors, enabling the creation of dashboards directly from live SAP SuccessFactors data within Grafana, all without the need for data replication to a native database. As you build visualizations, Grafana generates SQL queries to gather data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to SAP SuccessFactors. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested SAP SuccessFactors data.
Configure SAP SuccessFactors Connectivity for Grafana
Connectivity to SAP SuccessFactors from Grafana is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with SAP SuccessFactors data from Grafana, we start by creating and configuring a SAP SuccessFactors connection.
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Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection
- Select "SAP SuccessFactors" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SAP SuccessFactors.
You can authenticate to SAP Success Factors using Basic authentication or OAuth with SAML assertion.
Basic Authentication
You must provide values for the following properties to successfully authenticate to SAP Success Factors. Note that the provider will reuse the session opened by SAP Success Factors using cookies. Which means that your credentials will be used only on the first request to open the session. After that, cookies returned from SAP Success Factors will be used for authentication.
- Url: set this to the URL of the server hosting Success Factors. Some of the servers are listed in the SAP support documentation (external link).
- User: set this to the username of your account.
- Password: set this to the password of your account.
- CompanyId: set this to the unique identifier of your company.
OAuth Authentication
You must provide values for the following properties, which will be used to get the access token.
- Url: set this to the URL of the server hosting Success Factors. Some of the servers are listed in the SAP support documentation (external link).
- User: set this to the username of your account.
- CompanyId: set this to the unique identifier of your company.
- OAuthClientId: set this to the API Key that was generated in API Center.
- OAuthClientSecret: the X.509 private key used to sign SAML assertion. The private key can be found in the certificate you downloaded in Registering your OAuth Client Application.
- InitiateOAuth: set this to GETANDREFRESH.
👁 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 SAP SuccessFactors Connection page and update the User-based permissions.
👁 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.
👁 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 SAP SuccessFactors data from Grafana.
Visualize Live SAP SuccessFactors Data in Grafana
To establish a connection from Grafana to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.
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If you have not already done so, download and install Grafana for your operating system from the Grafana Website. Once installed, access Grafana at http://localhost:3000/.
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Log in to Grafana with your username and password for Grafana. If this is your first time logging in, the username is admin and the password is admin.
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On the navigation menu, click Sources > Add new connection. On this page, you can search for Microsoft SQL Server and select it as your data source.
👁 Adding a new Connection in Grafana
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Select Microsoft SQL Server and click Add new data source.
👁 Adding a new Connection in Grafana
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Enter a name for the new data source and then enter the following connection settings:
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Click Save & Test. A Database Connect OK message appears when you have a successful connection established.
Create a Dashboard
Once you create the data source for SAP SuccessFactors, you can start building dashboards on SAP SuccessFactors data. Start in the navigation menu and click Dashboards
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On the Dashboards page, click + Create dashboard, then click + Add visualization.
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This opens the Select data source window where you can select your created connection.
👁 Select your connection. (Salesforce shown)
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After selecting your connection, you can choose the tables and columns that you want to query for your visualization. Then press Run Query to run the generated query.
👁 Select the tables and columns you want to query. (Salesforce shown)
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After running your query, the resulting data is populated above the query editor. Here you can select the visualization that you want to use to present your data on the dashboard panel.
👁 Visualize your queried data. (Salesforce shown)
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When you have finished editing your panel, you can click Save dashboard to save the changes made to your Dashboard.
To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect AI today!
