Feed Asana Data into FineReport

The CData JDBC Driver for Asana fully implements the JDBC standard and can provide Asana data connectivity to a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and custom applications. In this article, we explain how to set Asana data as JDBC data source in FineReport and view Asana data as a table in the Report Designer.

Set Up a JDBC Data Source of Asana Data

Follow the instruction below to set Asana data as a FineReport database connection.

1. Copy the cdata.jdbc.asana.jar file from the lib folder in the CData JDBC Driver for Asana installation directory to the lib folder of the FineReport installation directory. You will need to copy the cdata.jdbc.asana.lic file as well.
2. From the Server tab, select Define Data Connection, click to add a new connection, and click JDBC.

Next we will set up the data connection definition in the window.

1. Database: Others
2. JDBC Driver: cdata.jdbc.asana.AsanaDriver
3. URL: A standard JDBC connection string using semicolon-separated connection properties.

   You can optionally set the following to refine the data returned from Asana.

   • WorkspaceId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Workspace to only return projects from the specified workspace. To get your workspace id, navigate to https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/workspaces while logged into Asana. This displays a JSON object containing your workspace name and Id.
   • ProjectId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Project to only return data mapped under the specified project. Project IDs can be found in the URL of your project's Overview page. This will be the numbers directly after /0/.

   Connect Using OAuth Authentication

   You must use OAuth to authenticate with Asana. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Asana using the browser. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

   For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Asana JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.asana.jar

   Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   When you configure the JDBC URL, 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.

   A typical JDBC URL is below:

   jdbc:asana:OAuthClientId=YourClientId;OAuthClientSecret=YourClientSecret;CallbackURL='http://localhost:33333';
4. Click Connection pool attributes and set Test before getting connections to No.

Click Test connection to ensure you have configured the connection properly. With the connection to Asana set up, you can use it as FineReport data source.

Select Asana Data in the Report Designer.

1. Click to add a new template data set and select DB query to open the database query window.
2. Choose the JDBC connection that you created from the dropdown list.
3. The Asana entities will appear as tables on the left pane.
4. Write a SELECT statement for the Asana data tables and columns that you want to load.
5. Click preview and data is shown as table.

With these simple steps, Asana can be used as a JDBC data source in FineReport.