Integrate SAS xpt Data in the Pentaho Report Designer

The CData JDBC driver for SAS xpt data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to SAS xpt data as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on SAS xpt 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 SAS xpt connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

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

     Connecting to Local SASXpt Files

     You can connect to local SASXpt file by setting the URI to a folder containing SASXpt files.

     Connecting to S3 data source

     You can connect to Amazon S3 source to read SASXpt files. Set the following properties to connect:

     • URI: Set this to the folder within your bucket that you would like to connect to.
     • AWSAccessKey: Set this to your AWS account access key.
     • AWSSecretKey: Set this to your AWS account secret key.
     • TemporaryLocalFolder: Set this to the path, or URI, to the folder that is used to temporarily download SASXpt file(s).

     Connecting to Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

     You can connect to ADLS Gen2 to read SASXpt files. Set the following properties to connect:

     • URI: Set this to the name of the file system and the name of the folder which contacts your SASXpt files.
     • AzureAccount: Set this to the name of the Azure Data Lake storage account.
     • AzureAccessKey: Set this to our Azure DataLakeStore Gen 2 storage account access key.
     • TemporaryLocalFolder: Set this to the path, or URI, to the folder that is used to temporarily download SASXpt file(s).

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.sasxpt.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:sasxpt:URI=C:/folder;

   • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.sasxpt.SASXptDriver.
   • 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 SAS xpt Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with SAS xpt data.

1. Add the SAS xpt 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 Id, Column1 FROM SampleTable_1 WHERE Column2 = '100'

   👁 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 SampleTable_1 table.
4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.