Build Slack-Connected Visualizations in datapine

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

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Slack, allowing you to query data from Slack 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 Slack, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Slack data quickly.

Configure Slack Connectivity for datapine

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

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Slack" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Slack. Slack uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties. See the Getting Started section of the help documentation for an authentication guide. 👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Slack 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 Slack data from datapine.

Connecting to Slack from datapine

Once you configure your connection to Slack in Connect AI, you are ready to connect to Slack 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. Slack1)
   • 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 Slack Data in datapine

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

Having connect to Slack from datapine, you are now able to visualize and analyze real-time Slack 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!