Visualize Salesforce Marketing Data in Tableau Desktop (through CData Connect)

Tableau is a visual analytics platform transforming the way businesses use data to solve problems. When paired with CData Connect (or Connect Server), you can easily get access to live Salesforce Marketing data within Tableau.

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

This article shows how to create a virtual SQL Server database for Salesforce Marketing, connect to the virtual database in Tableau, and build a simple chart.

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

   Authenticating to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud APIs

   Set the User and Password to your login credentials, or to the credentials for a sandbox user if you are connecting to a sandbox account.

   Connecting to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud APIs

   By default, the data provider connects to production environments. Set UseSandbox to true to use a Salesforce Marketing Cloud sandbox account.

   The default Instance is s7 of the Web Services API; however, if you use a different instance, you can set Instance.

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 Salesforce Marketing data from Tableau Desktop.

Visualize Live Salesforce Marketing Data in Tableau Desktop

The steps below outline connecting to the virtual Salesforce Marketing database in CData Connect and building a simple visualization from the data.

1. Open Tableau and click "Microsoft SQL Server" under Connect -> To a Server.
2. In the connection wizard, enter the values for your CData Connect instance and click "Sign In"
   • Server: the address of your Connect instance and port of the TDS endpoint, separated by a comma (default port is: 1433)
   • Database: the virtual database you configured for the Salesforce Marketing data
   • Username & Password: the credentials for a CData Connect user
3. Select your newly created database and the table(s) you wish to visualize (defining relationships for JOINed tables as needed).
4. Select Dimensions and Measures and configure your visualization.

SQL Access to Salesforce Marketing Data from On-Premise Applications

At this point, you have a direct connection to live Salesforce Marketing data from your Tableau Desktop workbook. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 200 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including Salesforce Marketing) from desktop applications like Tableau refer to our CData Connect page or download a free trial.