Analyze ScrapingBee 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 ScrapingBee data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for ScrapingBee, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to ScrapingBee in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to ScrapingBee 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 "ScrapingBee" 👁 Selecting a Connector (Salesforce is shown).
   
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to ScrapingBee.

   Using API Key Authentication

   ScrapingBee uses API key authentication. To obtain an API key:

   1. Sign in to your ScrapingBee account at https://app.scrapingbee.com
   2. Navigate to the Dashboard and locate your API key in the top section.
   3. Copy the API key for use in the connection string.

   After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
   Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:
   • APIKey: Set this to your ScrapingBee API key.

   Example Connection String

   Profile=C:\profiles\ScrapingBee.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings="APIKey=your_api_key";
   

   Connecting to ScrapingBee

   Once the authentication is configured, you can connect to ScrapingBee and query data from any of the available tables. All tables require at least one input parameter (such as a search query or product ID) to retrieve data.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
   

Add ScrapingBee Resource Definitions in API Server

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

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource 👁 Adding a new resource
   
2. Select the ScrapingBee 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 ScrapingBee from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the ScrapingBee 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 ScrapingBee 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 ScrapingBee data. For more information on creating OData feeds from ScrapingBee (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live ScrapingBee data in tools that consume OData APIs.