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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/zuora-cloud-tableau-online.rst

⇱ Build Zuora Visualizations in Tableau Cloud

Build Zuora Visualizations in Tableau Cloud

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live Zuora data and build visualizations in Tableau Cloud.

Tableau Cloud is an analytics platform fully hosted in the cloud. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Zuora data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to connect to Zuora and build visualizations from Zuora data in Tableau Cloud.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Zuora, allowing you to easily build visualizations from live Zuora data in Tableau Cloud without installing connectors or publishing worksheets and data sources from Tableau Desktop. As you build visualizations, Tableau Cloud generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Zuora, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Zuora data.

Configure Zuora Connectivity for Tableau Cloud

To work with Zuora data from Tableau Cloud, we need to connect to Zuora from Connect AI, provide user access to the connection, and create a Workspace for the Zuora data.

Connect to Zuora from Connect AI

CData Connect AI uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.

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

    Zuora uses the OAuth standard to authenticate users. See the online Help documentation for a full OAuth authentication guide.

    Configuring Tenant property

    In order to create a valid connection with the provider you need to choose one of the Tenant values (USProduction by default) which matches your account configuration. The following is a list with the available options:

    • USProduction: Requests sent to https://rest.zuora.com.
    • USAPISandbox: Requests sent to https://rest.apisandbox.zuora.com"
    • USPerformanceTest: Requests sent to https://rest.pt1.zuora.com"
    • EUProduction: Requests sent to https://rest.eu.zuora.com"
    • EUSandbox: Requests sent to https://rest.sandbox.eu.zuora.com"

    Selecting a Zuora Service

    Two Zuora services are available: Data Query and AQuA API. By default ZuoraService is set to AQuADataExport.

    DataQuery

    The Data Query feature enables you to export data from your Zuora tenant by performing asynchronous, read-only SQL queries. We recommend to use this service for quick lightweight SQL queries.

    Limitations
    • The maximum number of input records per table after filters have been applied: 1,000,000
    • The maximum number of output records: 100,000
    • The maximum number of simultaneous queries submitted for execution per tenant: 5
    • The maximum number of queued queries submitted for execution after reaching the limitation of simultaneous queries per tenant: 10
    • The maximum processing time for each query in hours: 1
    • The maximum size of memory allocated to each query in GB: 2
    • The maximum number of indices when using Index Join, in other words, the maximum number of records being returned by the left table based on the unique value used in the WHERE clause when using Index Join: 20,000

    AQuADataExport

    AQuA API export is designed to export all the records for all the objects ( tables ). AQuA query jobs have the following limitations:

    Limitations
    • If a query in an AQuA job is executed longer than 8 hours, this job will be killed automatically.
    • The killed AQuA job can be retried three times before returned as failed.
    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Zuora 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.

Configure Zuora Endpoints for Tableau Cloud

After connecting to Zuora, create a workspace for your desired table(s).

  1. Navigate to the Workspaces page and click Add to create a new Workspace (or select an existing workspace). 👁 The Workspaces page.
    👁 Adding a new Workspace.
  2. Click Add to add new assets to the Workspace.
  3. Select the Zuora connection (e.g. Zuora1) and click Next. 👁 Selecting an Asset (Salesforce is shown).
  4. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Confirm. 👁 Selecting Tables (Salesforce is shown).
  5. Make note of the OData Service URL for your workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}

With the connection, PAT, and Workspace configured, you are ready to connect to Zuora data from Tableau Cloud.

Visualize Live Zuora Data in Tableau Cloud

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Tableau Cloud based on the virtual Zuora database in Connect AI and building a simple visualization from the data.

  1. Log into Tableau Cloud, select a account, and create a new workbook.
  2. In the new workbook, choose the OData Connector from the data wizard and fill in the values for your Connect AI instance. 👁 Selecting OData connector in Tableau Cloud
    • Set Server to the OData URL for your Workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}
    • Set Authentication to Username and Password
    • Set Username to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
    • Set Password to a PAT for the above user
    👁 Connect to Connect AI from Tableau Cloud
  3. Select your newly created database and the table(s) you wish to visualize (defining relationships for JOINad tables as needed).
    4. 👁 Choosing a Database and Tables
  4. Select Dimensions and Measures and configure your visualization.
    5. 👁 Visualizing Zuora data in Tableau Cloud

Real-Time Access to Zuora Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Zuora data from your Tableau Cloud workbook. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more, with no need to publish data sources and workbooks from Tableau Desktop. For more information on gaining live access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Tableau Cloud, refer to our Connect AI page.