Connecting Bold BI to Azure Blob data source

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

Choose Azure Blob data source

To configure the Azure Blob data source, follow the below steps:

1. Click the Data Sources button in the configuration panel to add a new data connection.

   

2. Click CREATE NEW to launch a new connection from the connection panel.

3. Select the Azure Blob 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.

Create Azure Blob data source

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

1. Enter a name and description (optional) for the data source.

2. Enter a valid Azure Blob REST API endpoint in the URL textbox. Refer the Azure Blob API documentation for more details.

   Example: https://<:your_storage_account_name>.blob.core.windows.net<:your_end_point>

3. Select GET method for the REST API in Method combo box.

4. Default value for x-ms-version in Headers section is 2014-02-14. Refer other available versions.

5. 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.

6. Choose the data type based on the file extension (JSON / CSV / XML) which you have in REST API endpoint.

7. Choose Basic http Authentication under Authentication Type and input a valid Account Key.

   

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

How do I get Storage Account Key for connecting Azure Blob data source?

1. In Azure Portal, click Storage accounts and select the storage account.
2. Go to Settings -> Access keys and get the access keys.

How do I get Container name?

1. In Azure Portal, click Storage accounts and select the storage account.
2. Go to Overview -> Services -> Blobs and choose the container which has the file to be extracted.

Additional information

Setting up the URL

1. Replace <:your_storage_account_name> in the URL with the account name.

   https://<:your_storage_account_name>.blob.core.windows.net/

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

Sample queries

Data of a specific file from a container

https://<:your_storage_account_name>.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/customers.csv

https://<:your_storage_account_name>.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/orders.json

https://<:your_storage_account_name>.blob.core.windows.net/mycontainer/salesdata.xml

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 data retrieved from Azure Blob 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.

Related links

Data Transformation

Editing a Data Connection

Dashboard Designer Walkthrough

Azure Blob Integration