Integrate SAP ByDesign Data in the Pentaho Report Designer

The CData JDBC Driver for SAP ByDesign data enables access to live data from dashboards and reports. This article shows how to connect to SAP ByDesign data as a JDBC data source and publish reports based on SAP ByDesign data in Pentaho.

Connect and Create a Report

1. Copy the JAR file of the driver, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory, to the \Report-Designer\lib\jdbc\ folder in the Pentaho directory.
2. Run the report-designer.bat file in the \Report-Designer\ folder to open the Report-Designer UI.

3. Create a new data source with the driver by clicking Data -> Add Data Source -> Advanced -> JDBC (Custom) and then creating a new SAP ByDesign connection. In the resulting dialog, configure the connection properties as shown below.

   • Custom Connection URL property: Enter the JDBC URL. This starts with jdbc:sapbydesign: and is followed by a semicolon-separated list of connection properties.

     Set the following connection properties to connect to SAP ByDesign.

     • Url: Set this to the Url of your SAP ByDesign site. For example, https://test.sapbydesign.com
     • User: Set this to the username of your account.
     • Password: Set this to the password of your account.
     • CustomService or AnalyticsService: Only one of these must be specified. If you have a custom service you want to retrieve data from, specify CustomService. If you want to retrieve the reports of a analytical service, specify AnalyticsService.
       If neither is specified, 'cc_home_analytics.svc' will used as a default for the AnalyticsService property. If you are not sure what service to specify, you can always query the Services view to list available services.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the SAP ByDesign JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.sapbydesign.jar

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     When you configure the JDBC URL, 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.

     Below is a typical JDBC URL:

     jdbc:sapbydesign:URL=https://my999999.sapbydesign.com;User=username;Password=password;CustomService=servicename;
   • Custom Driver Class Name: Enter cdata.jdbc.sapbydesign.SAPByDesignDriver.
   • User Name: The username to authenticate with.
   • Password: The password to authenticate with.

Add SAP ByDesign Data to a Report

You are now ready to create a report with SAP ByDesign data.

1. Add the SAP ByDesign source to your report: Click Data -> Add Data Source -> JDBC and select the data source.

2. Configure the query. This article uses the one below:

   SELECT ID, ProductCategoryID FROM [Inventory Balance] WHERE ProductCategoryID = '1234567'
3. Drag a chart onto your report and double-click it to edit the chart. Run the report to display the chart. You can use the results of this query to create a simple chart for the [Inventory Balance] table.
4. Finally, run the report to see the chart.