Build Dashboards with SAP Ariba Procurement Data in Dundas BI

The CData ODBC Driver for SAP Ariba Procurement enables access to live data from SAP Ariba Procurement under the ODBC standard, allowing you work with SAP Ariba Procurement data in a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and directly, using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to connect to SAP Ariba Procurement data as a generic ODBC Data Provider and create charts, reports, and dashboards based on SAP Ariba Procurement data in Dundas BI.

Connect to SAP Ariba Procurement Data

1. If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can configure the DSN using the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the Help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.
   
   

   In order to connect with SAP Ariba Procurement, set the following:

   • ANID: Your Ariba Network ID.
   • ANID: Specify which API you would like the provider to retrieve SAP Ariba data from. Select the Buyer or Supplier API based on your business role (possible values are PurchaseOrdersBuyerAPIV1 or PurchaseOrdersSupplierAPIV1).
   • Environment: Indicate whether you are connecting to a test or production environment (possible values are TEST or PRODUCTION).

   Authenticating with OAuth

   After setting connection properties, you need to configure OAuth connectivity to authenticate.

   • Set AuthScheme to OAuthClient.
   • Register an application with the service to obtain the APIKey, OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret.

     For more information on creating an OAuth application, refer to the Help documentation.

   Automatic OAuth

   After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

   APIKey: The Application key in your app settings. OAuthClientId: The OAuth Client Id in your app settings. OAuthClientSecret: The OAuth Secret in your app settings.

   When you connect, the provider automatically completes the OAuth process:

   1. The provider obtains an access token from SAP Ariba and uses it to request data.
   2. The provider refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.
   3. The OAuth values are saved in memory relative to the location specified in OAuthSettingsLocation.

   When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

2. Open the Dundas BI interface, open the menu, and click New Data Connector.
3. Configure the Dundas BI Data Connector:
   • Name the Data Connector.
   • Select "ODBC generic" as the Data Provider.
   • Check the "Use System DSN" checkbox.
   • Select the appropriate System DSN.

Add SAP Ariba Procurement Data to a Dashboard

You are now ready to create a dashboard with SAP Ariba Procurement data.

1. Navigate to the Home page.
2. Click Explore Data.
3. Expand the appropriate Data Connector.
4. Drag the relevant data from the Connector to the panel.
   • You can select an entire "table" to add, but you may need to remove Measures/Rows from the Metric Set to build an appropriate visualization. Alternatively, you can select only the fields you wish to include in the visualization.
   • With the fields selected, you can add any filters or conditions on the Measures and Rows, further customizing the visualization.
5. Click Re-visualize from the menu bar and select the appropriate visualization for the data.
6. Click Add To New Dashboard to add the visualization to a new dashboard.
7. Configure the dashboard, creating dynamic visualizations of SAP Ariba Procurement data.