Build NetSuite Visualizations in Tableau Desktop

About NetSuite Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Oracle NetSuite. Customers use CData connectivity to:

Access all editions of NetSuite, including Standard, CRM, and OneWorld.

Connect with all versions of the SuiteTalk API (SOAP-based) and SuiteQL, which functions like SQL, enabling easier data querying and manipulation.

Access predefined and custom reports through support for Saved Searches.

Securely authenticate with Token-based and OAuth 2.0, ensuring compatibility and security for all use cases.

Use SQL stored procedures to perform functional actions like uploading or downloading files, attaching or detaching records or relationships, retrieving roles, getting extra table or column info, getting job results, and more.

Customers use CData solutions to access live NetSuite data from their preferred analytics tools, Power BI and Excel. They also use CData's solutions to integrate their NetSuite data into comprehensive databases and data warehouse using CData Sync directly or leveraging CData's compatibility with other applications like Azure Data Factory. CData also helps Oracle NetSuite customers easily write apps that can pull data from and push data to NetSuite, allowing organizations to integrate data from other sources with NetSuite.

Getting Started

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for NetSuite, allowing you to easily build visualizations from live NetSuite data in Tableau without installing connectors. As you build visualizations, Tableau generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to NetSuite, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return NetSuite data.

Configure NetSuite Connectivity for Tableau

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

Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection

Select "NetSuite" from the Add Connection panel

Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to NetSuite.

The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid NetSuite user credentials. In addition, the AccountId must be set to the ID of a company account that can be used by the specified User. The RoleId can be optionally specified to log in the user with limited permissions.

See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for more information on connecting to NetSuite.

Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)

Click Create & Test

Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add NetSuite 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.

Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.

On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.

Give your PAT a name and click Create.

The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to NetSuite data from Tableau.

Visualize Live NetSuite Data in Tableau

To establish a connection from Tableau Desktop to the CData Connect Cloud Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

In Tableau Desktop, open a new book. Under To a Server, select More, then Microsoft SQL Server.

Selecting Microsoft SQL Server as the connection type.

Enter your credentials:

Server: enter the Virtual SQL Server endpoint and port separated by a comma: tds.cdata.com,14333
Database: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, NetSuite1).
Authentication: select Use a specific username and password.
Username: 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 previously generated.
Require SSL: leave this selected.

Configuring the connection to the Virtual SQL Server API.

Click Sign In.

Select the Database (Connect Cloud connection) you wish to work with and opt for a Live or Extract Connection type.

Select the table(s) you wish to visualize. If you select multiple tables, define the relationship between the tables using the appropriate columns.

Selecting tables to visualize (Salesforce is shown)

Select the fields to visualize.

Visualizing live data (Salesforce is shown).

Real-Time Access to NetSuite Data from Data Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live NetSuite data from your Tableau workbook. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining live access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from applications like Tableau, refer to our Connect Cloud page.