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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/smartsheet-cloud-acl-analytics.rst

⇱ Connect to Smartsheet Data in ACL Analytics

Connect to Smartsheet Data in ACL Analytics

👁 Stanley Liu
Stanley Liu
Associate Technical Product Marketer
Connect to Smartsheet data via CData Connect AI in ACL Analytics to run your data analysis workflows with real-time access to Smartsheet data.

ACL Analytics, part of Diligent HighBond, is a powerful data analysis software primarily used for audit, risk management, and compliance. It enables professionals to examine and analyze large volumes of data to identify anomalies, trends, and potential risks or fraudulent activities.

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for Smartsheet, enabling analytics directly from live Smartsheet data within ACL Analytics, all without the need for data replication to a native database. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Smartsheet. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested Smartsheet data.

About Smartsheet Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Smartsheet. Customers use CData connectivity to:

  • Read and write attachments, columns, comments and discussions.
  • View the data in individuals cells, report on cell history, and more.
  • Perform Smartsheet-specific actions like deleting or downloading attachments, creating, copying, deleting, or moving sheets, and moving or copying rows to another sheet.

Users frequently integrate Smartsheet with analytics tools such as Tableau, Crystal Reports, and Excel. Others leverage our tools to replicate Smartsheet data to databases or data warehouses.


Getting Started


Configure Smartsheet Connectivity for ACL Analytics

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

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

    Smartsheet uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, register an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties.

    However, for testing purposes you can instead use the Personal Access Token you get when you create an application; set this to the OAuthAccessToken connection property.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Smartsheet 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 Smartsheet data from ACL Analytics.

Connect to Smartsheet from ACL Analytics

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from ACL Analytics to create a new Smartsheet data source. The CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server allows you to establish a connection to your data from integration tools that support connections to SQL servers. The Virtual SQL Server mimics the behavior of a traditional SQL server, and it supports a range of query options.

  1. With your Analytics File open, select 'Import' --> 'Database and application' 👁 Creating a new data source
  2. Create a new connection
  3. Set the connection information
    • Server: tds.cdata.com
    • Port: 14333
    • Auth Scheme: Password
    • Username: a Connect AI user, for example, [email protected]
    • Password: the PAT for the above Connect AI user
    • Database: the name of your Smartsheet connection, for example, Smartsheet1
    👁 Connecting to Connect AI
  4. Click "Test Connection"
  5. Click "OK"
  6. You are now ready to work with your Smartsheet data in ACL Analytics! 👁 See your data in ACL Analytics

Live connections to Smartsheet data from your applications

ACL Analytics can now connect to live Smartsheet data directly through Connect AI, allowing you to analyze Smartsheet data without duplicating it.

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect AI today!