I have my own community connector built which is pulling data through API. Everything works as it should, as I am getting data into the report.
Now I want to be able to query the API from the report, using a dedicated field/filter. What I mean is having the option to write a string and request API for results including that string.
What I have done so far is I've used the request.configParams.field_name parameter to pass request data from Google Data Studio back to my data source but this means reloading the data source into the report every time I change the value.
Is there another way to pass custom request data from Google Data Studio to my connector API query?
For Community Connectors, it is not possible to push down arbitrary filters for report viewers at the moment (other than date filters).
Related
I am new to REST API. What I basically understand from REST API is you need to call it each time to get the updated data.
In my case, I need to use the data received from REST API to generate reports in PowerBI. Adding on, I should be able to "read" the data coming from the server and "write" to the data as well.
I did find the option of getting data from WEB in PowerBI to connect directly to REST API. So, if I do that I can only "read".
Can you help me with different options on how can I do both "read/pull" and "write/push" to the server when I have its REST API? I am not sure if a cloud has to be used in-between.
Please presume that I do not know anything about any of the things I will be mentioning because I really do not.
Most OpenData sites have the possibility of exporting the presented file either in for example .csv or .json formats (Example). They also always have an API tab (Example API).
I presume using the API would mean that if the data is updated you would receive the change whereas exporting it as .csv would mean the content will not be changed anymore.
My questions is: how does one use this API code to display the same table one would get when exporting a .csv file.
Would you use a database to extract this information? What kind of database and how do you link the API to the database?
I presume using the API would mean that if the data is updated you
would receive the change whereas exporting it as .csv would mean the
content will not be changed anymore.
You are correct in the sense that, if you download the csv to your computer, that csv file won't be updated any more.
An API is something you would call - in this case, you can call the API, saying "Hey, do you have the latest data on xxx?", and you will be given back the latest information about what you have asked. This does not mean though, that this site will notify you when there's a new update - you will have to keep calling the API (every hour, every day etc) to see if there are any changes.
My questions is: how does one use this API code to display the same
table one would get when exporting a .csv file.
You would:
Call the API from a server code, or a cloud service
Let the server code or cloud service decipher (or "Parse") the response
Use the deciphered response to create a table made out of HTML, or to place it into a database
Would you use a database to extract this information? What kind of
database and how do you link the API to the database?
You wouldn't necessarily need a database to extract information, although a database would be nice to place the final data inside.
You would first need some sort of way to "call the REST API". There are many ways to do this - using Shell Script, using Python, using Excel VBA etc.
I understand this is hard to visualize, so here is an example of step 1, where you can retrieve information.
Try placing in the below URL (taken from the site you showed us) in your address bar of your Chrome browser, and hit enter
http://opendata.brussels.be/api/records/1.0/search/?dataset=associations-clubs-sportifs
See how it gives back a lot of text with many brackets and commas? You've basically asked the site to give you some data, and this is the response they gave back (different browsers work differently - IE asks you to download the response as a .json file). You've basically called an API.
To see this data more cleanly, open your developer tools of your Chrome browser, and enter the following JavaScript code
var url = 'http://opendata.brussels.be/api/records/1.0/search/?dataset=associations-clubs-sportifs';
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open('GET', url);
xhr.setRequestHeader('X-Requested-With', 'XMLHttpRequest');
xhr.onload = function() {
if (xhr.status === 200) {
// success
console.log(JSON.parse(xhr.responseText));
} else {
// error
console.log(JSON.parse(xhr.responseText));
}
};
xhr.send();
When you hit enter, a response will come back, stating "Object". If you click through the arrows, you can see this is a cleaner version of the data we just saw - more human readable.
In this case, I used JavaScript to retrieve the data, but you can use whatever code you want. You could proceed to use JavaScript to decipher the data, manipulate it, and push it into a database.
kintone is an online cloud database where you can customize it to run JavaScript codes, and have it store the data in their database, so you'll have the data stored online like in the below image. This is just one example of a database you can use.
There are other cloud services which allow you to connect API end points of different services with each other, like IFTTT and Zapier, but I'm not sure if they connect with open data.
The page you linked to shows that the API returns values as a JSON object. To access the data you can just send an appropriate http request and the response will be the requested data as a JSON. You can send requests like that over your browser if you want to.
Most languages allow JSON objects to be manipulated pro grammatically if you need to do work on the data.
Restful APIs publish model is "request and publish". Wen you request data via an API endpoint, you would receive response strings in JSON objects, CSV tables or XML.
The publisher, in this case Opendata.brussel.be would update their database on regular basis and publish the results via an API endpoint.
If you want to download the table as a relational data table in a CSV file, you'd need to parse the JSON objects into relational tables. This can be tricky since each JSON response string can vary in their paths.
There're several ways to do it. You can either write scripts to flatten the JSON objects or use a tool to parse and flatten the objects for you.
I use a tool called Acho to turn API endpoints into CSV files. It would parse almost all API endpoints through the parameters and even configure for multiple requests, such as iterative and recursive requests.
Acho API parser
I am investigating ways to move data from SQL Server into system exposed via a RESTful HTTP API.
If I were to use SSIS would I have to write a custom connector to push the data to the HTTP API after the transform step, or is there a built in feature that supports pushing to an HTTP API?
If you only want to move a very small amount of data, you could use the Web Services Task
...but note that pushing data out of SQL Server is not what this task is intended for...
The Web Service task executes a Web service method. You can use the
Web Service task for the following purposes:
Writing to a variable the values that a Web service method returns.
For example, you could obtain the highest temperature of the day from
a Web service method, and then use that value to update a variable
that is used in an expression that sets a column value.
Writing to a file the values that a Web service method returns. For
example, a list of potential customers can be written to a file and
the file then used as a data source in a package that cleans the data
before it is written to a database.
For more control, you'll want to look at using the Script Component in a data flow. Much more flexibility/control.
I have an MSSQL 2012 Reporting server set up, and many, many reports made in Sequel Server Data Tools. I would like to have access to the data returned in those reports through C#/ASP.NET.
The end result is to display the data in the KendoUI DataViz suite, but first I need to convert the reports into JSON on the server side.
Is this possible?
Edit: To be clear, I need to know how to access the report data from the web server. Converting data into JSON format is not what I need assistance with.
Yes it is possible. I suggest you to take a look how to return JSON with ASP.NET MVC and how it works.
Since I asked the question, I've learned I can use the atom feed button on the reports to download a .atom file, which contains a URL that provides report data in XML.
You'll need to replace the & in the URL with '&', and then you have a working URL.
I am building a website (probably in Wordpress) which takes data from a number of different sources for display on various pages.
The sources:
A Twitter feed
A Flickr feed
A database on a remote server
A local database
From each source I will mainly retrieve
A short string, e.g. for Twitter, the Tweet, and from the local database the title of a blog page.
An associated image, if one exists
A link identifying the content at its source
My question is:
What is the best way to a) store the data and b) retrieve the data
My thinking is:
i) Write a script that is run every 2 or so minutes on a cron job
ii) the script retrieves data from all sources and stores it in the local database
iii) application code can then retrieve all data from the one source, the local database
This should make application code easier to manage - we only ever draw data from one source in application code - and that's the main appeal. But is it overkill for a relatively small site?
I would recommend putting the twitter feed and flickr feed in JavaScript. Both flickr and twitter have REST APIs. By putting it on the client you free up resources on your server, create less complexity, your users won't be waiting around for your server to fetch the data, and you can let twitter and flickr cache the data for you.
This assumes you know JavaScript. Once you get past JavaScript quirks, it's not a bad language. Give Jquery a try. JQuery Twitter plugin Flickery JQuery plugin. There are others, that's just the first results from Google.
As for your data on the local server and remote server, that will depend more on the data that is being fetched. I would go with whatever you can develop the fastest and gives acceptable results. If that means making a REST call from server to sever, then go for it. IF the remote server is slow to respond, I would go the AJAX REST API method.
And for the local database, you are going to have to write server side code for that, so I would do that inside the Wordpress "framework".
Hope that helps.