1. Business Intelligence Connector
  2. Business Intelligence Connector Overview
  3. Getting Started with the BI Connector Feature

Getting Started with the BI Connector Feature

The following steps give an overview of the typical workflow working with the Business Intelligence Connector feature:

  1. Working with reports:

    1. Create and save a report in the OpenAir Reports application. Include all the data you want to have access to from your BI tools.

      Note:

      If the report has collapsible levels — for example, a Customer column under which different projects roll up under — the published report data will not include the data for the sub-categories (for example, projects) if the parent level (for example, the customer) is collapsed. In the OpenAir report, click show all to include all sub-categories in the published data, and hide all to exclude all sub-categories and only include the totals for the main level.

    2. [Optional] Share the report with other employees in your company.

    3. Publish the report to the OpenAir OData service manually — See Publishing Your Reports Manually to the OpenAir OData Service

    4. [Optional] Share the published report — Choose whether you want the other employees you shared the report with to have access. to the published report in the OpenAir OData feed. See Sharing Published Reports With Other Employees in Your Company.

    5. Refresh the published report automatically — Schedule the report to be published every day, week or month if you want your published report data to refresh regularly and your OpenAir OData feed to be updated automatically. See Configuring OpenAir to Publish Reports Automatically and Refresh Published Reports Periodically.

  2. Working with list views:

    1. Customize your list view — Go to a supported list view in OpenAir. Customize the columns, sort order and column filters for your list view. Use published list views like custom queries and refine the data you want to have access to from your BI tools, or in your OpenAir form and scheduled scripts.

    2. Publish your list view as private or public — Edit your saved list view configuration properties and publish the list view to the OpenAir OData service. Choose whether you want other employees in your company to have access to the published list view in the OpenAir OData feed. The published list view data in your OpenAir OData feed will be updated in real-time. See Publishing List Views to the OpenAir OData Service.

  3. Working with your OpenAir data in your BI tools:

    1. Connect to your OpenAir OData feed — In your BI tools, connect your BI document to data resources (reports or list views) in your OpenAir OData feed. See Connecting BI Tools to Your OpenAir OData Feed.

    2. Shape and transform your imported data — Some tools let you transform the imported data before it is displayed in the BI tool itself. You can rename or re-order your columns, for example or sort and refine it further to suit your purpose.

    3. Refresh the data automatically — Configure your BI tool to refresh automatically and get the latest data from your OpenAir OData feed as often as needed. Most BI tools offer the option to refresh the data every time you open the document and at regular interval while you work with your data.

    4. Build your dashboards and reports — Use the full capability of your BI tools to build and distribute your dashboards and reports.

    Important:

    The number of requests you can send to the OpenAir OData service is limited. To review your usage and the limits set for your account, go to Administration > Global Settings > Account > OData limits. For more information, see BI Connector Requirements and Limits

    Note:

    Remember the difference between the different type of resources:

    • Published list views give you access to your OpenAir data in real-time.

    • Published reports are a snapshot of your OpenAir data at the time of publication. It is equivalent to running a report and exporting the report to a CSV file.

  4. Working with your published report and list view data in your OpenAir form and scheduled scripts. See Reading OpenAir OData Resource Data in Your OpenAir Form and Scheduled Scripts.

    Note:

    Accessing data from your OpenAir OData feed using OpenAir user scripting functions does not use any of your allocated OData requests.

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