Benefits of BI Connector
The Business Intelligence (BI) Connector feature lets you do more with your OpenAir data. It extends the reporting capabilities of OpenAir and lets you access your OpenAir data easily from other applications, including most BI tools. You can then combine OpenAir data with information from other systems in your existing BI tools to create sophisticated reports.
The BI Connector feature has the following advantages over other methods you can use to work with your OpenAir data in your preferred BI tools:
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Automation — Schedule your reports to run and update your OpenAir OData feed data at regular interval (minimum interval is one time a day). Your published list view data is updated in real-time. You can configure the applications connecting to your OData feed to refresh automatically. The BI Connector feature cuts out the need to export your report or list view data as CSV files and import the data in other systems over and over again.
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Security — The OpenAir OData service follows the same security best practice as OpenAir. All data is encrypted in transport using the industry standard transport layer security (TLS) protocol. Your published report and list view data is stored securely on OpenAir servers. You can remove published resources from the OData service at any time. You must enter your OpenAir sign-in details to access published resources from your OData feed. You can only access published resources from the OData service if the BI Connector feature is enabled for your account and if you have the relevant role permissions. Data access in the OData feed follow the same privileges and restrictions as in OpenAir. Account administrators can control employees' access to the BI Connector functionality by role permission.
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Portability — Publishing and accessing data to and from the OData service preserves the original data types, whereas data exported as a CSV file is saved as text, even if the values were numbers in OpenAir.
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Simplicity — Connect BI tools to your OpenAir data in real-time without the need to write any code. Most modern BI tools can connect to external data sources and use wizards to guide you through the data connection. Follow the vendor documentation for the product you want to connect to your OData feed. Little maintenance effort is required, if any, after your tools are connected to the OData feed.
The BI Connector feature also extends the capability of the User Scripting feature in OpenAir by letting you access your report and list view data in form and scheduled scripts. You can use published list views like custom queries — this makes a sophisticated level of search and sorting available before you start processing the data in your scripts.