Create Sugar CRM Dashboards in Bold BI

Bold BI allows you to create, share, and collaborate on interactive BI dashboards. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to Sugar CRM data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Sugar CRM and build reports from Sugar CRM data in Bold BI.

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

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

   The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid SugarCRM user credentials. This will use the default OAuth token created to allow client logins. OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret are required if you do not wish to use the default OAuth token.

   You can generate a new OAuth consumer key and consumer secret in Admin -> OAuth Keys. Set the OAuthClientId to the OAuth consumer key. Set the OAuthClientSecret to the consumer secret.

   Additionally, specify the URL to the SugarCRM account.

   Note that retrieving SugarCRM metadata can be expensive. It is advised that you store the metadata locally as described in the "Caching Metadata" chapter of the help documentation.

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 Sugar CRM data from Bold BI.

Visualize Live Sugar CRM Data in Bold BI

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Bold BI to create a new Sugar CRM data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into your Bold BI instance, click the data sources tab, create a new data source, and choose the SQL Server connector.
2. Choose the basic configuration and set the connection properties:
   • Name: Name your connection
   • Server name: Your Connect Server instance (CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Port: 1433
   • Username: Your Connect Server username
   • Password: Your Connect Server password
   • Mode: Choose Live to query Sugar CRM on-demand or choose Extract to load the data into Bold BI
   • Database: Choose the database you created from the drop-down menu (sugarcrmdb)
3. Click Connect
4. Select the table to visualize and drag it onto the workspace.
5. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
6. Click the gear icon for the visualization to configure the visualization properties and assign columns to the visualization.

SQL Access to Sugar CRM Data from Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live Sugar CRM data from your Bold BI workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Sugar CRM data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, see the CData Connect page.