Analyze Box Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live Box data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Box, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Box in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Box from API Server

CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection
2. Select "Box"
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Box.

   Box uses the OAuth standard to authenticate. To authenticate to Box, obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL by registering an app. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

   

Add Box Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Box, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Box data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource
2. Select the Box connection
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to Box from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the Box Connection and Resource(s)

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With the API Server configured, we can visualize Box data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize
6. Select fields and choose a chart type

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Box data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Box (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Box data in tools that consume OData APIs.