Build Interactive Dashboards from Box Data in Amazon QuickSight

Amazon QuickSight allows users to build interactive dashboards in the cloud. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get direct access to Box data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Box in Connect Server and build dashboards in Amazon QuickSight with access to Box data.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Box, allowing you to easily build reports from live Box data in Quicksight — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Quicksight 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 Box, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Box data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Box 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 "Box" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Box.

   Box uses the OAuth standard to authenticate. To authenticate to Box, you will need to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL by registering an app. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

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 Box data from Quicksight.

Import Box Data into SPICE and Create Interactive Dashboards

The steps below outline creating a new data set based on the virtual Box database in Connect Server, importing the dataset into SPICE, and building a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Amazon QuickSight and on the left panel click "Datasets"
2. Click "New dataset," select SQL Server as the data source, configure the connection to your Connect Server instance, and click "Create data source"
3. Select a table to visualize (or submit a custom SQL query for your data) and click Select.
4. Select "Import to SPICE for quicker analytics" and click "Visualize."
5. Select fields to visualize as well as a visual type.

Schedule Refreshes for SPICE Data Sets

QuickSight users can schedule refreshes for data sets that are imported into SPICE, ensuring that data being analyzed is only as old as the most recent refresh.

1. Navigate to the QuickSight home page.
2. Click "Manage data."
3. Select the data set you wish to refresh.
4. Click "Schedule refresh."
5. Click Create, configure the refresh settings (time zone, repeat frequency, and starting datetime), and click Create.

SQL Access to Box Data from Applications

At this point, you have a direct connection to Box data from your Amazon QuickSight dashboard. You can create new visualizations, build interactive dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 250 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from applications like Amazon QuickSight, refer to our Connect Server page.