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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/sharepoint-cloud-datapine.rst

⇱ Build SharePoint-Connected Visualizations in datapine

Build SharePoint-Connected Visualizations in datapine

👁 Dibyendu Datta
Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist
Use CData Connect AI and datapine to build visualizations and dashboards with access to live SharePoint data.

datapine is a browser-based business intelligence platform. When paired with the CData Connect AI, you get access to your SharePoint data directly from your datapine visualizations and dashboards. This article describes connecting to SharePoint in CData Connect AI and building a simple SharePoint-connected visualization in datapine.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for SharePoint, allowing you to query data from SharePoint without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to SharePoint, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested SharePoint data quickly.

About SharePoint Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from SharePoint has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Access data from a wide range of SharePoint versions, including Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and above, and SharePoint Online.
  • Access all of SharePoint thanks to support for Hidden and Lookup columns.
  • Recursively scan folders to create a relational model of all SharePoint data.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to upload and download documents and attachments.

Most customers rely on CData solutions to integrate SharePoint data into their database or data warehouse, while others integrate their SharePoint data with preferred data tools, like Power BI, Tableau, or Excel.

For more information on how customers are solving problems with CData's SharePoint solutions, refer to our blog: Drivers in Focus: Collaboration Tools.


Getting Started


Configure SharePoint Connectivity for datapine

Connectivity to SharePoint from datapine is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with SharePoint data from datapine, we start by creating and configuring a SharePoint connection.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "SharePoint" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SharePoint.

    Set the URL property to the base SharePoint site or to a sub-site. This allows you to query any lists and other SharePoint entities defined for the site or sub-site.

    The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid SharePoint user credentials when using SharePoint On-Premise.

    If you are connecting to SharePoint Online, set the SharePointEdition to SHAREPOINTONLINE along with the User and Password connection string properties. For more details on connecting to SharePoint Online, see the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add SharePoint 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.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
  4. 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 SharePoint data from datapine.

Connecting to SharePoint from datapine

Once you configure your connection to SharePoint in Connect AI, you are ready to connect to SharePoint from datapine.

  1. Log into datapine
  2. Click Connect to navigate to the "Connect" page
  3. Select MS SQL Server as the data source
  4. In the Integration step, fill in the connection properties and click "Save and Proceed"
    • Set the Internal Name
    • Set Database Name to the name of the connection we just configured (e.g. SharePoint1)
    • Set Host / IP to "tds.cdata.com"
    • Set Username to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
    • Set Password to the corresponding PAT
    • Set Database Port to "14333"
    👁 Configuring the connection to CData Connect AI
  5. In the Data Schema step, select the tables and fields to visualize and click "Save and Proceed" 👁 Selecting tables and fields to visualize (Salesforce is shown)
  6. In the References step, define any relationships between your selected tables and click "Save and Proceed" 👁 Defining foreign key relationships
  7. In the Data Transfer step, click "Go to Analyzer"

Visualize SharePoint Data in datapine

After connecting to CData Connect AI, you are ready to visualize your SharePoint data in datapine. Simply select the dimensions and measures you wish to visualize!

👁 Visualizing data in datapine (Salesforce is shown)

Having connect to SharePoint from datapine, you are now able to visualize and analyze real-time SharePoint data no matter where you are. To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from datapine, try CData Connect AI today!