Build HCL Domino-Connected Dashboards in Redash

Redash lets you connect and query your data sources, build dashboards to visualize data and share them with your company. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to HCL Domino data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for HCL Domino and build visualizations from HCL Domino data in Redash.

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

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

   Prerequisites

   The connector requires the Proton component to be installed. Normally, Proton is distributed as part of the AppDev pack. See the HCL documentation for instructions on acquiring and installing Proton or the AppDev pack.

   Once the Proton service is installed and running, you will also need to create a user account and download its Internet certificate. This certificate can be used to set the connector certificate connection properties.

   Authenticating to Domino

   • Server: The name or IP address of the server running Domino with the Proton service.
   • Port: The port number that the Proton service is listening on.
   • Database: The name of the database file, including the .nsf extension.
   • SSLClientCertType: This must match the format of the certificate file. Typically this will be either PEMKEY_FILE for .pem certificates or PFXFILE for .pfx certificates.
   • SSLClientCert: The path to the certificate file.
   • SSLServerCert: This can be set to (*) if you trust the server. This is usually the case, but if you want to perform SSL validation, you may provide a certificate or thumbprint instead. See the documentation for SSLServerCert for details.

   Additional Server Configuration

   The connector supports querying Domino views if any are defined. Before views can be queried by the connector they must be registered with the design catalog.

   Please refer to the Catalog Administration section of the AppDev pack documentation for details on how to do this.

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 HCL Domino data from Redash.

Visualize HCL Domino Data in Redash

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Redash based on the virtual HCL Domino database in Connect Server and building a simple visualization from the data.

Create a New Data Source

1. Log into Redash, click on your profile and click "Data Sources"
2. Click the " New Data Source" button
3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the Data Source Type
4. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Name: Name the data source (e.g. HCL Domino (CData Connect))
   • Host: The full URL to your CData Connect instance (e.g. https://connect_server_url)
   • Port: The port of the CData Connect SQL Server endpoint (e.g. 1433)
   • User: A CData Connect user
   • Password: The password for the above user
   • Database name: The name of the virtual database for HCL Domino (e.g. Domino1)
   • Click the checkbox to Use SSQL
5. Click Create
6. Click the "Test Connection" button to ensure you have configured the connection properly

With the new Data Source created, we are ready to visualize our HCL Domino data.

Create a HCL Domino Data Visualization

1. Click Create -> New Query
2. Select the newly created Data Source (you can explore the data structure in the New Query wizard)
3. Write a SQL statement to retrieve the data, for example:
   SELECT Name, Address FROM ByName WHERE City = 'Miami'
4. Click the "Execute" button to load HCL Domino data into Redash via CData Connect
5. Use the Visualization Editor to create and analyze graphs from HCL Domino data
6. You can schedule the query to refresh and update the visualization periodically

SQL Access to HCL Domino Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to HCL Domino data from Redash. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Redash, refer to our Connect Server page.