Query, Visualize, and Share live Freshdesk Data in Redash

Redash is a collaboration tool that lets you query, visualize, and share your data. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, Redash gets access to live Freshdesk data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Freshdesk using Connect Cloud and work with live Freshdesk data in Redash.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server interface for Freshdesk, allowing you to query data from Freshdesk without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Freshdesk, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Freshdesk data quickly.

Configure Freshdesk Connectivity for Redash

Connectivity to Freshdesk from Redash is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Freshdesk data in Redash, we start by creating and configuring a Freshdesk connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Freshdesk" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Freshdesk.

   FreshDesk makes use of basic authentication. To connect to data, set the following connection properties:

   • Domain: Set this to the domain associated with your FreshDesk account. For example, in your URL: https://my_domain.freshdesk.com.
   • APIKey: Set this to the API key associated with your FreshDesk account. To retrieve your API key, Log into your support Portal -> Click on profile picture in the top right corner -> profile settings page. The API key will be available below the change password section to the right.
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Freshdesk Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

Connect to Freshdesk from Redash using Connect Cloud

To establish a connection from Redash to CData Connect Cloud using the SQL Server API, follow these steps.

1. Log into Redash.
2. Click the settings widget on the top right.
3. Click New Data Source.
4. Select Microsoft SQL Server as the Data Source Type.
5. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Database Name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, Salesforce1).
   • Server: enter the virtual SQL Server host name (tds.cdata.com)
   • User: enter your CData Connect Cloud username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect Cloud interface. For example, [email protected].
   • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page.
   • Port: enter 14333
6. Click Create.
7. Click Test Connection to ensure that the connection is configured properly.

You can now work with live Freshdesk data in Redash.

Get CData Connect Cloud

To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from Redash, try CData Connect Cloud today!