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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/sharepoint-odbc-dundas-bi.rst

⇱ Build Dashboards with SharePoint Data in Dundas BI

Build Dashboards with SharePoint Data in Dundas BI

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Create dynamic dashboards and perform analytics based on SharePoint data in Dundas BI.

The CData ODBC Driver for SharePoint enables access to live data from SharePoint under the ODBC standard, allowing you work with SharePoint data in a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and directly, using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to SharePoint data as a generic ODBC Data Provider and create charts, reports, and dashboards based on SharePoint data in Dundas BI.

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


Connect to SharePoint Data

  1. If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can configure the DSN using the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the Help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

    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

    When you configure the DSN, 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.

  2. Open the Dundas BI interface, open the menu, and click New Data Connector. 👁 Adding a New Data Connector.
  3. Configure the Dundas BI Data Connector:
    • Name the Data Connector.
    • Select "ODBC generic" as the Data Provider.
    • Check the "Use System DSN" checkbox.
    • Select the appropriate System DSN.
    👁 Configure the Data Connector.

Add SharePoint Data to a Dashboard

You are now ready to create a dashboard with SharePoint data.

  1. Navigate to the Home page.
  2. Click Explore Data.
    3. 👁 Home > Explore Data
  3. Expand the appropriate Data Connector.
  4. Drag the relevant data from the Connector to the panel.
    • You can select an entire "table" to add, but you may need to remove Measures/Rows from the Metric Set to build an appropriate visualization. Alternatively, you can select only the fields you wish to include in the visualization.
    • With the fields selected, you can add any filters or conditions on the Measures and Rows, further customizing the visualization.
    5. 👁 Adding data from a Data Connector. (Salesforce is shown.)
  5. Click Re-visualize from the menu bar and select the appropriate visualization for the data.
    6. 👁 Displayed Data. (Salesforce is shown.)
  6. Click Add To New Dashboard to add the visualization to a new dashboard.
    7. 👁 Adding the Visualization to a Dashboard. (Salesforce is shown.)
  7. Configure the dashboard, creating dynamic visualizations of SharePoint data. 👁 Sample Dashboard (Salesforce data is shown.)

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the SharePoint ODBC Driver to get started:

 Download Now

Learn more:

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SharePoint ODBC Driver

The SharePoint ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from SharePoint and SharePoint Online, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access SharePoint data like you would a database - read, write, and update SharePoint Lists, Contacts, Calendar, Links, Tasks, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.