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

⇱ How to integrate Metabase with Smartsheet Data

How to integrate Metabase with Smartsheet Data

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live Smartsheet data and create an interactive dashboard in Metabase from Smartsheet data.

Metabase is an open source data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive dashboards. When paired with CData Connect AI, users can easily create visualizations and dashboards linked to live Smartsheet data. This article describes how to connect to Smartsheet and build a simple visualization using Smartsheet data.

CData Connect provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Smartsheet, allowing you to easily integrate with live Smartsheet data in Metabase — without replicating the data. Connect looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Metabase and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Smartsheet, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return 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 Metabase

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

  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.

    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 Metabase.

Connect to CData Connect AI from Metabase

After creating the connection in Connect AI, navigate to your Metabase instance. Use the SQL Server interface to connect to Connect AI.

  1. Navigate to the administration screen (Settings -> Admin) and click "Add Database" from the "Databases" tab 👁 Adding a new database connection to Metabase.
  2. Configure the connection to Connect AI and click "Save"
    • Database type: Select "SQL Server"
    • Name: Name the connection (e.g. "Smartsheet (Connect AI)")
    • Host: tds.cdata.com
    • Port: 14333
    • Database name: The name of the connection you just created (e.g. Smartsheet1)
    • Username: A Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
    • Password: The PAT previously created
    • Click to Use a secure connection (SSL)
    👁 Configuring the connection to Connect AI.

Execute Smartsheet Data with Metabase

Once you configure the connection to Connect AI, you can query Smartsheet and build visualizations.

  1. Use the "Write SQL" tool to retrieve the Smartsheet data 👁 Click the 'Write SQL' button.
  2. Write a SQL query based on the Smartsheet connection in CData Connect AI, e.g. 

    SELECT TaskName, Progress FROM Sheet_Event_Plan_Budget
    👁 Collected data (Salesforce is shown).
  3. Navigate to the "Visualization" screen, choose a visualization, and configure the visualization 👁 Collected data (Salesforce is shown).

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have built a simple visualization from Smartsheet data in Metabase. You can continue to work with live Smartsheet data in Metabase just like you would any SQL Server database. For more information on creating a live connection to Smartsheet (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect AI page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Smartsheet data in Metabase today.