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Analyze JotForm Data in R
Create data visualizations and use high-performance statistical functions to analyze JotForm data in Microsoft R Open.
Access JotForm data with pure R script and standard SQL. You can use the CData ODBC Driver for JotForm and the RODBC package to work with remote JotForm data in R. By using the CData Driver, you are leveraging a driver written for industry-proven standards to access your data in the popular, open-source R language. This article shows how to use the driver to execute SQL queries to JotForm data and visualize JotForm data in R.
Install R
You can complement the driver's performance gains from multi-threading and managed code by running the multithreaded Microsoft R Open or by running R linked with the BLAS/LAPACK libraries. This article uses Microsoft R Open (MRO).
Connect to JotForm as an ODBC Data Source
Information for connecting to JotForm follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.
Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the JotForm Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\JotForm.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for JotForm (see below).
JotForm API Profile Settings
You will need to find your JotForm API Key in order to authenticate. To obtain an API Key, go to 'My Account' > 'API Section' > 'Create a New API Key'. Once you've created your new API Key, you can set it in the ProfileSettings connection property.
Custom Enterprise API Domains
Enterprise customers of JotForm are given custom API domains to connect to, rather than the default 'api.jotform.com' domain. If you are an enterprise JotForm customer, then set Domain to you custom API hostname, such as 'your-domain.com' or 'subdomain.jotform.com', inside the ProfileSettings connection property. Conversely, if you do not have a custom domain and still need to connect to 'api.jotform.com', then leave Domain undefined and set only APIKey.
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.
Windows
If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.
Linux
If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for JotForm in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.
/etc/odbc.ini
[CData API Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for JotForm
Description = My Description
Profile = C:\profiles\JotForm.apip
ProfileSettings = 'APIKey = my_api_key
Domain = my_custom_domain'
For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).
Load the RODBC Package
To use the driver, download the RODBC package. In RStudio, click Tools -> Install Packages and enter RODBC in the Packages box.
After installing the RODBC package, the following line loads the package:
library(RODBC)
Note: This article uses RODBC version 1.3-12. Using Microsoft R Open, you can test with the same version, using the checkpoint capabilities of Microsoft's MRAN repository. The checkpoint command enables you to install packages from a snapshot of the CRAN repository, hosted on the MRAN repository. The snapshot taken Jan. 1, 2016 contains version 1.3-12.
library(checkpoint)
checkpoint("2016-01-01")
Connect to JotForm Data as an ODBC Data Source
You can connect to a DSN in R with the following line:
conn <- odbcConnect("CData API Source")
Schema Discovery
The driver models JotForm APIs as relational tables, views, and stored procedures. Use the following line to retrieve the list of tables:
sqlTables(conn)
Execute SQL Queries
Use the sqlQuery function to execute any SQL query supported by the JotForm API.
forms <- sqlQuery(conn, "SELECT Id, Title FROM Forms WHERE Status = 'ENABLED'", believeNRows=FALSE, rows_at_time=1)
You can view the results in a data viewer window with the following command:
View(forms)
Plot JotForm Data
You can now analyze JotForm data with any of the data visualization packages available in the CRAN repository. You can create simple bar plots with the built-in bar plot function:
par(las=2,ps=10,mar=c(5,15,4,2))
barplot(forms$Title, main="JotForm Forms", names.arg = forms$Id, horiz=TRUE)
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