Feed Sugar CRM Data into FineReport

The CData JDBC Driver for Sugar CRM fully implements the JDBC standard and can provide Sugar CRM data connectivity to a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and custom applications. In this article, we explain how to set Sugar CRM data as JDBC data source in FineReport and view Sugar CRM data as a table in the Report Designer.

Set Up a JDBC Data Source of Sugar CRM Data

Follow the instruction below to set Sugar CRM data as a FineReport database connection.

1. Copy the cdata.jdbc.sugarcrm.jar file from the lib folder in the CData JDBC Driver for Sugar CRM installation directory to the lib folder of the FineReport installation directory. You will need to copy the cdata.jdbc.sugarcrm.lic file as well.
2. From the Server tab, select Define Data Connection, click to add a new connection, and click JDBC.

Next we will set up the data connection definition in the window.

1. Database: Others
2. JDBC Driver: cdata.jdbc.sugarcrm.SugarCRMDriver
3. URL: A standard JDBC connection string using semicolon-separated connection properties.

   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.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.sugarcrm.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.

   A typical JDBC URL is below:

   jdbc:sugarcrm:User=MyUser;Password=MyPassword;URL=MySugarCRMAccountURL;CacheMetadata=True;
4. Click Connection pool attributes and set Test before getting connections to No.

Click Test connection to ensure you have configured the connection properly. With the connection to Sugar CRM set up, you can use it as FineReport data source.

Select Sugar CRM Data in the Report Designer.

1. Click to add a new template data set and select DB query to open the database query window.
2. Choose the JDBC connection that you created from the dropdown list.
3. The Sugar CRM entities will appear as tables on the left pane.
4. Write a SELECT statement for the Sugar CRM data tables and columns that you want to load.
5. Click preview and data is shown as table.

With these simple steps, Sugar CRM can be used as a JDBC data source in FineReport.