Connecting Bold BI to OData data source

Bold BI dashboard designer supports connecting OData web services through REST API.

Choose OData data source

To configure the OData data source, follow the below 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 OData connection in the connection panel.

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

Choose data source from server

Create OData data source

Once you click the data source, the NEW DATA SOURCE configuration panel opens. Follow the below steps to create OData data source.

Enter a name and description (optional) for the data source.
Enter a valid OData REST API endpoint in the URL textbox. Refer the OData API documentation for more details.

Example: https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Orders
Select GET method for the REST API in Method combo box.
In Max Rows, enter the maximum number of rows to be fetched from the OData data source. This value is used to fetch the data from OData data source via pagination.
Choose a time interval for Refresh Settings using the combo box, to trigger the Rest API request periodically to keep the data in sync with our dashboard.
Choose the Data Format based on your OData service (JSON / XML).
Choose one of the Authentication Type from the dropdown.
To connect based on the chosen Authentication, refer Supported Authentication Types.

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

Fetching table with single entity and multiple entities

To fetch single entity

To pull data from a particular table use the odata table endpoint directly.

Example, https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Customers

Only the Customers table will be extracted into Bold BI.

Preview Single Table

To fetch multiple entities

You can use the service root URL to extract multiple tables into Bold BI at once.

Example service root URL, https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/

Choose the tables needed to be extracted into Bold BI and click Connect.

Preview Multiple Tables

Once multiple tables are moved, you can perform join on the available tables, if required, to gain insights.

Preview Join Table

Authentication for OData

None

To connect to OData services without any authentication choose this type. You can also pass the API token in header if required.

Basic http Authentication

Enter a valid username and password of your OData service.

Additional information

Max Rows	Most of the 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 of time before 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. If you do not want to sync your new data, choose ‘Never’.

Sample queries

https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Order_Details

https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Customers

https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Regions

https://services.odata.org/V4/Northwind/Northwind.svc/Orders

https://services.odata.org/TripPinRESTierService

Preview and data import

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