Connecting Bold BI to Alma data source

The Bold BI dashboard designer connects the Alma web services through REST API.

Choose Alma data source

To configure the Alma data source, follow these steps:

Click the Data Sources button in the configuration panel to add a new data connection.
Click CREATE NEW to launch a new connection from the connection panel.
Select the Alma connection in the connection panel.

NOTE: You can also create a data source from the home page by clicking the Data Sources menu from the left menu panel and Create Data Source from the data sources page.

Once you click the Alma data source, the Alma data source configuration panel opens. Follow these steps to create a Alma data source:

Enter the name and description (optional) for the data source.
Enter the Host Name for the connected account. For example. <:your_alma_domain>.api.getalma.com
Enter the Application key for the connected account.
Click the Resources dropdown box and choose the required endpoint.
Enter the API KEY and Auth Secret for the connected account in textbox.
Click the Custom Url to enter the URL manually. For more details you can refer this documentation https://dev.api.getalma.com/docs/api/v2/.
Select Method from the method drop-down box.
In Max Rows, enter the maximum number of rows fetched from the Alma data source. This value is used to fetch the data from the Alma data source using pagination.
Choose a time interval for the Refresh Settings using the combo box to periodically trigger the Rest API request to keep the data in sync with your dashboard.
Select the JSON data type in the Data Format combo box.
Choose None in the Authentication Type combo box.

Data source preview

You can also edit the connection information set using the Edit Connection option.

Max Rows	Most REST APIs return only fewer data on a single API request. To pull the amount of data you need, set a value in this field. Pagination is handled internally and will fetch the amount of data you need.
Refresh Settings	Period before the next refresh call is triggered. This will automatically trigger a call for the API configured in the data source to keep the data up to date.

For instance, to view the parents details, connect to the parents endpoint, which will return information to the parents.
To view parents details,here replace the application.

https://yourhostname/v2/<:application>/parents

For more information on the API endpoints available for this data source, refer to their official API Documentation

To get all school details in a district, you need to use the below-given URL.

https://yourhostname/v2/<:application>/district/schools
To get event types of schools, you need to replace the id of the school in the below-given URL.

https://yourhostname/v2/<:application>/school/calendar/event-types/<:id>

Click the Preview & Connect to connect with the configurations set.
The Choose Table(s) dialog opens. The schema represents the key fields of JSON data retrieved from the Alma Rest API request. This dialog displays a list of schema(s) in the tree view and their corresponding values in the grid for preview. Select the required schemas from the tree view to use in the designer and click Connect.
Now, the data design view page with the selected table schema opens. Drag from the tree view table in the left pane and drop the table on the Query designer page.
Click Save to save the data source with a relevant name.