Create Access-Connected Visualizations in Klipfolio

Klipfolio is an online dashboard platform for building real-time business dashboards for your team or your clients. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to Access data for visualizations, reports, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Access in Connect Server and build visualizations from Access data in Klipfolio.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Access, allowing you to easily build reports from live Access data in Klipfolio — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Klipfolio generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Access, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Access data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Access Data

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

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "Access" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Access.

   To connect, set the DataSource property to the path to the Access database.

4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to Access data from Klipfolio.

Connect to Access in Klipfolio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Klipfolio to create a new Access data source.

1. Open Klipfolio
2. Click in Data Feeds on the left panel to add a new data source.
3. Search for and select MS SQL as the Service.
4. Click "Create a custom MSSQL data source"
5. Configure the data source by setting the SQL Server connection properties:
   • Host: your instance (e.g., CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Port: 1433
   • Database: your database (e.g., Access1)
   • Driver: MS SQL
   • Username: your Connect Server username
   • Password: your Connect Server password
   • SQL Query: any query to retrieve data (e.g., SELECT * FROM Orders)
   • Select the checkbox to "Include column headers"
6. Click "Get data" to preview the Access data before building a data model.

Build a Data Model

After retrieving the data, click "Continue." In the new window, configure your data model.

1. Confirm that the model includes all columns you wish to work with
2. Name your model
3. (optional) Set the Description
4. Set "Header in row" to 1
5. Click the toggle to "Exclude data before row" and set the value to 2
6. Click "Save data feed"

Create a Klip

With the data modeled, we are ready to create a Klip (or visualization) of the data to be used in the Klipfolio platform for dashboards, reporting, and more.

1. Click "Add Metric"
2. Select a measure, placed on the y-axis, to track.
3. Select up to five dimensions/columns, for the x-axis, that you wish to visualize.
4. Click "Save metric"

SQL Access to Access Data from Applications

Now you have a Klip built from live Access data. You can add it to a new dashboard, share, and more. Easily create more data sources and new visualizations, produce reports, and more — all without replicating Access data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect Server.