Connect to Google Directory Data from Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports is a business intelligence application by SAP designed to help you analyze your data with well-formatted, pixel-perfect, and multi-page reports. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, Crystal Reports gets access to live Google Directory data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Google Directory using Connect Cloud and report on Google Directory data in Crystal Reports.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server interface for Google Directory, allowing you to query data from Google Directory 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 Google Directory, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Google Directory data quickly.

Configure Google Directory Connectivity for Crystal Reports

Connectivity to Google Directory from Crystal Reports is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Google Directory data from Crystal Reports, we start by creating and configuring a Google Directory connection.

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

   Google uses the OAuth authentication standard. You can authorize the data provider to access Google Spreadsheets as an individual user or with a Google Apps Domain service account. See the Getting Started section of the data provider help documentation for an authentication guide.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Google Directory 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 Google Directory from Crystal Reports using Connect Cloud

To establish a connection from Crystal Reports to CData Connect Cloud, you will need to download the JDBC Driver.

1. Open the Client Tools page of CData Connect Cloud.
2. In the Dev Tools section, click JDBC.
3. Download and run the setup file.
4. When the installation is complete, locate the JDBC Connect JAR file in the JDBC driver's installation directory, for example, C:\Program Files\CData\JDBC Driver for CData Connect\lib.
5. Copy the JDBC Connect JAR file (cdata.jdbc.connect.jar).

After copying the JDBC CData Connect JAR file, you will need to paste it into the Crystal Reports installation location and configure the connection to Connect Cloud.

1. Find the installation directory for Crystal Reports, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\lib
2. Paste the JDBC Connect JAR file into the Crystal Reports installation directory.
3. Go to the parent java folder. For example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java This folder should contain a CRConfig file.
4. Open CRConfig in a text editor.
5. Add the path to the JDBC CData Connect JAR file in the of the CRConfig file, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\lib
6. Log into Crystal Reports and start a blank report.
7. In the Database Expert dialog, click Create New Connection.
8. Select the JDBC data source and the tables you want to add. Click OK.
9. In the Connection dialog, enter the Connection URL (e.g. jdbc:connect:AuthScheme=OAuth;) and Database Classname (e.g. cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver).
10. Click Finish. The Database Expert dialog displays all available connections.

You can now create reports with the connected data.

Get CData Connect Cloud

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