Create Sybase-Connected Visualizations in Klipfolio

Klipfolio is an online dashboard platform for building real-time business dashboards for your team or your clients. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to Sybase data for visualizations, reports, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Sybase in Connect Server and build visualizations from Sybase data in Klipfolio.

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

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

   To connect to Sybase, specify the following connection properties:

   • Server: Set this to the name or network address of the Sybase database instance.
   • Database: Set this to the name of the Sybase database running on the specified Server.

   Optionally, you can also secure your connections with TLS/SSL by setting UseSSL to true.

   Sybase supports several methods for authentication including Password and Kerberos.

   Connect Using Password Authentication

   Set the AuthScheme to Password and set the following connection properties to use Sybase authentication.

   • User: Set this to the username of the authenticating Sybase user.
   • Password: Set this to the username of the authenticating Sybase user.

   Connect using LDAP Authentication

   To connect with LDAP authentication, you will need to configure Sybase server-side to use the LDAP authentication mechanism.

   After configuring Sybase for LDAP, you can connect using the same credentials as Password authentication.

   Connect Using Kerberos Authentication

   To leverage Kerberos authentication, begin by enabling it setting AuthScheme to Kerberos. See the Using Kerberos section in the Help documentation for more information on using Kerberos authentication.

   You can find an example connection string below: Server=MyServer;Port=MyPort;User=SampleUser;Password=SamplePassword;Database=MyDB;Kerberos=true;KerberosKDC=MyKDC;KerberosRealm=MYREALM.COM;KerberosSPN=server-name

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 Sybase data from Klipfolio.

Connect to Sybase in Klipfolio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Klipfolio to create a new Sybase data source.

1. Open Klipfolio
2. Click in Data Feeds on the left panel to add a new data source.
3. Search for and select MS SQL as the Service.
4. Click "Create a custom MSSQL data source"
5. Configure the data source by setting the SQL Server connection properties:
   • Host: your instance (e.g., CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Port: 1433
   • Database: your database (e.g., Sybase1)
   • Driver: MS SQL
   • Username: your Connect Server username
   • Password: your Connect Server password
   • SQL Query: any query to retrieve data (e.g., SELECT * FROM Products)
   • Select the checkbox to "Include column headers"
6. Click "Get data" to preview the Sybase data before building a data model.

Build a Data Model

After retrieving the data, click "Continue." In the new window, configure your data model.

1. Confirm that the model includes all columns you wish to work with
2. Name your model
3. (optional) Set the Description
4. Set "Header in row" to 1
5. Click the toggle to "Exclude data before row" and set the value to 2
6. Click "Save data feed"

Create a Klip

With the data modeled, we are ready to create a Klip (or visualization) of the data to be used in the Klipfolio platform for dashboards, reporting, and more.

1. Click "Add Metric"
2. Select a measure, placed on the y-axis, to track.
3. Select up to five dimensions/columns, for the x-axis, that you wish to visualize.
4. Click "Save metric"

SQL Access to Sybase Data from Applications

Now you have a Klip built from live Sybase data. You can add it to a new dashboard, share, and more. Easily create more data sources and new visualizations, produce reports, and more — all without replicating Sybase data.

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