Query, Visualize, and Share live Salesforce 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 Salesforce data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Salesforce using Connect Cloud and work with live Salesforce data in Redash.

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

Configure Salesforce Connectivity for Redash

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

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

   There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Salesforce: Login, OAuth, and SSO. The Login method requires you to have the username, password, and security token of the user.

   If you do not have access to the username and password or do not wish to require them, you can use OAuth authentication.

   SSO (single sign-on) can be used by setting the SSOProperties, SSOLoginUrl, and TokenUrl connection properties, which allow you to authenticate to an identity provider. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for more information.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Salesforce 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 Salesforce 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 Salesforce 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!