The CData Sync App provides a straightforward way to continuously pipeline your SAP BusinessObjects BI data to any database, data lake, or data warehouse, making it easily available for Analytics, Reporting, AI, and Machine Learning.
The SAP BusinessObjects BI connector can be used from the CData Sync application to pull data from SAP BusinessObjects BI and move it to any of the supported destinations.
Create a connection to SAP BusinessObjects BI by navigating to the Connections page in the Sync App application and selecting the corresponding icon in the Add Connections panel. If the SAP BusinessObjects BI icon is not available, click the Add More icon to download and install the SAP BusinessObjects BI connector from the CData site.
Required properties are listed under the Settings tab. The Advanced tab lists connection properties that are not typically required.
To connect to your SAP BusinessObjects BI instance, you must set the following connection properties:
After that double click on RESTful Web Service and you'll see the access URL. By default it is, http://{Server-Name}:6405/biprws.
This section details a selection of advanced features of the SAP BusinessObjects BI Sync App.
The Sync App allows you to define virtual tables, called user defined views, whose contents are decided by a pre-configured query. These views are useful when you cannot directly control queries being issued to the drivers. See User Defined Views for an overview of creating and configuring custom views.
Use SSL Configuration to adjust how Sync App handles TLS/SSL certificate negotiations. You can choose from various certificate formats; see the SSLServerCert property under "Connection String Options" for more information.
Configure the Sync App for compliance with Firewall and Proxy, including Windows proxies and HTTP proxies. You can also set up tunnel connections.
The Sync App offloads as much of the SELECT statement processing as possible to SAP BusinessObjects BI and then processes the rest of the query in memory (client-side).
See Query Processing for more information.
See Logging for an overview of configuration settings that can be used to refine CData logging. For basic logging, you only need to set two connection properties, but there are numerous features that support more refined logging, where you can select subsets of information to be logged using the LogModules connection property.
By default, the Sync App attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store.
To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats to do so.
To connect through the Windows system proxy, you do not need to set any additional connection properties. To connect to other proxies, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
In addition, to authenticate to an HTTP proxy, set ProxyAuthScheme, ProxyUser, and ProxyPassword, in addition to ProxyServer and ProxyPort.
Set the following properties:
The CData Sync App models SAP BusinessObjects BI universes as relational views.
Schemas for most database reports are defined in simple, text-based configuration files.
The universes of your SAP BusinessObjects BI instance will be listed as separate views you can query against. A universe can have several 'business views'. If that's the case, each 'business view' will be listed as a separate view you can run queries against. If the universe has no business views, than all the universe's objects will be listed as columns.
For example, let's suppose we have a universe named, EFashion. And it has these objects: Year (dimension), StoreName (dimension), SalesRevenue (measure), ThisYear (filter).
The CData Sync App will expose the EFashion view that will have the following columns: Year, StoreName, SalesRevenue, ThisYear (input only column). Some queries you can run:
SELECT Year, StoreName, SalesRevenue FROM EFashion WHERE ThisYear = true SELECT Year, StoreName, SalesRevenue FROM EFashion WHERE StoreName LIKE '%boston%' SELECT Year, StoreName, SalesRevenue FROM EFashion WHERE Year BETWEEN 2016 AND 2018 AND StoreName LIKE '%austin%'Note: On dynamically listed views, when you run a 'SELECT *' query, only one default dimension will be selected by default. This is done to improve performance and to make the report more readable. Since a universe can have many dimensions, the report can be unreadable.
For example, in the above example, if we'd run a 'SELECT *' query, only one of the dimensions, Year or StoreName would be selected. If you want to select all dimensions, you must explicitly write them in the query.
Query with multiple flows: If you run queries that include objects that are not related to each other, even though they are in the same universe, the SAP BusinessObjects BI will generate two query flows in the background. In that case, the CData Sync App will raise an error stating that the query is ambiguous.
Note: If the dimension and measures you have provided generates multiple query flows, then the respective schemas will be created for each query flow. The naming in this case will be, MyReport_Flow0, MyReport_Flow1 etc.
Some examples:
SELECT StoreName, City, NameOfManager FROM EFashion WHERE SalesRevenue > 1000 AND (City = 'Houston' OR City = 'Boston')
SELECT StoreName, City, NameOfManager FROM EFashion WHERE SalesRevenue <= 1000 AND City NOT IN ('Houston', 'Boston')
SELECT StoreName, City, NameOfManager FROM EFashion WHERE City LIKE ('%ston') AND NameOfManager IS NOT NULL
The connection string properties are the various options that can be used to establish a connection. This section provides a complete list of the options you can configure in the connection string for this provider. Click the links for further details.
For more information on establishing a connection, see Establishing a Connection.
| Property | Description |
| URL | The URL of the rest API exposed by the SAP BusinessObjects BI. |
| User | The SAP BusinessObjects BI user account used to authenticate. |
| Password | The password used to authenticate the user. |
| Property | Description |
| SSLServerCert | The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL. |
| Property | Description |
| FirewallType | The protocol used by a proxy-based firewall. |
| FirewallServer | The name or IP address of a proxy-based firewall. |
| FirewallPort | The TCP port for a proxy-based firewall. |
| FirewallUser | The user name to use to authenticate with a proxy-based firewall. |
| FirewallPassword | A password used to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall. |
| Property | Description |
| ProxyAutoDetect | This indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings. |
| ProxyServer | The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. |
| ProxyPort | The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on. |
| ProxyAuthScheme | The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
| ProxyUser | A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
| ProxyPassword | A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
| ProxySSLType | The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy. |
| ProxyExceptions | A semicolon separated list of destination hostnames or IPs that are exempt from connecting through the ProxyServer . |
| Property | Description |
| LogModules | Core modules to be included in the log file. |
| Property | Description |
| Location | A path to the directory that contains the schema files defining tables, views, and stored procedures. |
| BrowsableSchemas | This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC. |
| Tables | This property restricts the tables reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Tables=TableA,TableB,TableC. |
| Views | Restricts the views reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Views=ViewA,ViewB,ViewC. |
| Property | Description |
| MaxRows | Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time. |
| Other | These hidden properties are used only in specific use cases. |
| PageSize | Specifies how many records the SAP BusinessObjects BI will return on a single page. |
| PseudoColumns | This property indicates whether or not to include pseudo columns as columns to the table. |
| SupportEnhancedSQL | This property enhances SQL functionality beyond what can be supported through the API directly, by enabling in-memory client-side processing. |
| Timeout | The value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation. |
| UserDefinedViews | A filepath pointing to the JSON configuration file containing your custom views. |
This section provides a complete list of the Authentication properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
| Property | Description |
| URL | The URL of the rest API exposed by the SAP BusinessObjects BI. |
| User | The SAP BusinessObjects BI user account used to authenticate. |
| Password | The password used to authenticate the user. |
The URL of the rest API exposed by the SAP BusinessObjects BI.
You can find the correct URL after logging in the Central Management Console. From the combo box choose 'Applications'. After that, double-click on 'RESTful Web Service' and you'll see the access URL. By default, it is http://{SERVER-NAME}:6405/biprws.
The SAP BusinessObjects BI user account used to authenticate.
Together with Password, this field is used to authenticate against the SAP BusinessObjects BI server.
The password used to authenticate the user.
The User and Password are together used to authenticate with the server.
This section provides a complete list of the SSL properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
| Property | Description |
| SSLServerCert | The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL. |
The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL.
If using a TLS/SSL connection, this property can be used to specify the TLS/SSL certificate to be accepted from the server. Any other certificate that is not trusted by the machine is rejected.
This property can take the following forms:
| Description | Example |
| A full PEM Certificate (example shortened for brevity) | -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIIChTCCAe4CAQAwDQYJKoZIhv......Qw== -----END CERTIFICATE----- |
| A path to a local file containing the certificate | C:\cert.cer |
| The public key (example shortened for brevity) | -----BEGIN RSA PUBLIC KEY----- MIGfMA0GCSq......AQAB -----END RSA PUBLIC KEY----- |
| The MD5 Thumbprint (hex values can also be either space or colon separated) | ecadbdda5a1529c58a1e9e09828d70e4 |
| The SHA1 Thumbprint (hex values can also be either space or colon separated) | 34a929226ae0819f2ec14b4a3d904f801cbb150d |
If not specified, any certificate trusted by the machine is accepted.
Use '*' to signify to accept all certificates. Note that this is not recommended due to security concerns.
This section provides a complete list of the Firewall properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
| Property | Description |
| FirewallType | The protocol used by a proxy-based firewall. |
| FirewallServer | The name or IP address of a proxy-based firewall. |
| FirewallPort | The TCP port for a proxy-based firewall. |
| FirewallUser | The user name to use to authenticate with a proxy-based firewall. |
| FirewallPassword | A password used to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall. |
The protocol used by a proxy-based firewall.
This property specifies the protocol that the Sync App will use to tunnel traffic through the FirewallServer proxy. Note that by default, the Sync App connects to the system proxy; to disable this behavior and connect to one of the following proxy types, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
| Type | Default Port | Description |
| TUNNEL | 80 | When this is set, the Sync App opens a connection to SAP BusinessObjects BI and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy. |
| SOCKS4 | 1080 | When this is set, the Sync App sends data through the SOCKS 4 proxy specified by FirewallServer and FirewallPort and passes the FirewallUser value to the proxy, which determines if the connection request should be granted. |
| SOCKS5 | 1080 | When this is set, the Sync App sends data through the SOCKS 5 proxy specified by FirewallServer and FirewallPort. If your proxy requires authentication, set FirewallUser and FirewallPassword to credentials the proxy recognizes. |
To connect to HTTP proxies, use ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate to HTTP proxies, use ProxyAuthScheme, ProxyUser, and ProxyPassword.
The name or IP address of a proxy-based firewall.
This property specifies the IP address, DNS name, or host name of a proxy allowing traversal of a firewall. The protocol is specified by FirewallType: Use FirewallServer with this property to connect through SOCKS or do tunneling. Use ProxyServer to connect to an HTTP proxy.
Note that the Sync App uses the system proxy by default. To use a different proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
The TCP port for a proxy-based firewall.
This specifies the TCP port for a proxy allowing traversal of a firewall. Use FirewallServer to specify the name or IP address. Specify the protocol with FirewallType.
The user name to use to authenticate with a proxy-based firewall.
The FirewallUser and FirewallPassword properties are used to authenticate against the proxy specified in FirewallServer and FirewallPort, following the authentication method specified in FirewallType.
A password used to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall.
This property is passed to the proxy specified by FirewallServer and FirewallPort, following the authentication method specified by FirewallType.
This section provides a complete list of the Proxy properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
| Property | Description |
| ProxyAutoDetect | This indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings. |
| ProxyServer | The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. |
| ProxyPort | The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on. |
| ProxyAuthScheme | The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
| ProxyUser | A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
| ProxyPassword | A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
| ProxySSLType | The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy. |
| ProxyExceptions | A semicolon separated list of destination hostnames or IPs that are exempt from connecting through the ProxyServer . |
This indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings.
This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings.
To connect to an HTTP proxy, see ProxyServer. For other proxies, such as SOCKS or tunneling, see FirewallType.
The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through.
The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. The Sync App can use the HTTP, Windows (NTLM), or Kerberos authentication types to authenticate to an HTTP proxy.
If you need to connect through a SOCKS proxy or tunnel the connection, see FirewallType.
By default, the Sync App uses the system proxy. If you need to use another proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on.
The port the HTTP proxy is running on that you want to redirect HTTP traffic through. Specify the HTTP proxy in ProxyServer. For other proxy types, see FirewallType.
The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
This value specifies the authentication type to use to authenticate to the HTTP proxy specified by ProxyServer and ProxyPort.
Note that the Sync App will use the system proxy settings by default, without further configuration needed; if you want to connect to another proxy, you will need to set ProxyAutoDetect to false, in addition to ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate, set ProxyAuthScheme and set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword, if needed.
The authentication type can be one of the following:
If you need to use another authentication type, such as SOCKS 5 authentication, see FirewallType.
A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
The ProxyUser and ProxyPassword options are used to connect and authenticate against the HTTP proxy specified in ProxyServer.
You can select one of the available authentication types in ProxyAuthScheme. If you are using HTTP authentication, set this to the user name of a user recognized by the HTTP proxy. If you are using Windows or Kerberos authentication, set this property to a user name in one of the following formats:
user@domain domain\user
A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
This property is used to authenticate to an HTTP proxy server that supports NTLM (Windows), Kerberos, or HTTP authentication. To specify the HTTP proxy, you can set ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To specify the authentication type, set ProxyAuthScheme.
If you are using HTTP authentication, additionally set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword to HTTP proxy.
If you are using NTLM authentication, set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword to your Windows password. You may also need these to complete Kerberos authentication.
For SOCKS 5 authentication or tunneling, see FirewallType.
By default, the Sync App uses the system proxy. If you want to connect to another proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy.
This property determines when to use SSL for the connection to an HTTP proxy specified by ProxyServer. This value can be AUTO, ALWAYS, NEVER, or TUNNEL. The applicable values are the following:
| AUTO | Default setting. If the URL is an HTTPS URL, the Sync App will use the TUNNEL option. If the URL is an HTTP URL, the component will use the NEVER option. |
| ALWAYS | The connection is always SSL enabled. |
| NEVER | The connection is not SSL enabled. |
| TUNNEL | The connection is through a tunneling proxy. The proxy server opens a connection to the remote host and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy. |
A semicolon separated list of destination hostnames or IPs that are exempt from connecting through the ProxyServer .
The ProxyServer is used for all addresses, except for addresses defined in this property. Use semicolons to separate entries.
Note that the Sync App uses the system proxy settings by default, without further configuration needed; if you want to explicitly configure proxy exceptions for this connection, you need to set ProxyAutoDetect = false, and configure ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate, set ProxyAuthScheme and set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword, if needed.
This section provides a complete list of the Logging properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
| Property | Description |
| LogModules | Core modules to be included in the log file. |
Core modules to be included in the log file.
Only the modules specified (separated by ';') will be included in the log file. By default all modules are included.
See the Logging page for an overview.
This section provides a complete list of the Schema properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
| Property | Description |
| Location | A path to the directory that contains the schema files defining tables, views, and stored procedures. |
| BrowsableSchemas | This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC. |
| Tables | This property restricts the tables reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Tables=TableA,TableB,TableC. |
| Views | Restricts the views reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Views=ViewA,ViewB,ViewC. |
A path to the directory that contains the schema files defining tables, views, and stored procedures.
The path to a directory which contains the schema files for the Sync App (.rsd files for tables and views, .rsb files for stored procedures). The folder location can be a relative path from the location of the executable. The Location property is only needed if you want to customize definitions (for example, change a column name, ignore a column, and so on) or extend the data model with new tables, views, or stored procedures.
If left unspecified, the default location is "%APPDATA%\\CData\\SAPBusinessObjectsBI Data Provider\\Schema" with %APPDATA% being set to the user's configuration directory:
This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC.
Listing the schemas from databases can be expensive. Providing a list of schemas in the connection string improves the performance.
This property restricts the tables reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Tables=TableA,TableB,TableC.
Listing the tables from some databases can be expensive. Providing a list of tables in the connection string improves the performance of the Sync App.
This property can also be used as an alternative to automatically listing views if you already know which ones you want to work with and there would otherwise be too many to work with.
Specify the tables you want in a comma-separated list. Each table should be a valid SQL identifier with any special characters escaped using square brackets, double-quotes or backticks. For example, Tables=TableA,[TableB/WithSlash],WithCatalog.WithSchema.`TableC With Space`.
Note that when connecting to a data source with multiple schemas or catalogs, you will need to provide the fully qualified name of the table in this property, as in the last example here, to avoid ambiguity between tables that exist in multiple catalogs or schemas.
Restricts the views reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Views=ViewA,ViewB,ViewC.
Listing the views from some databases can be expensive. Providing a list of views in the connection string improves the performance of the Sync App.
This property can also be used as an alternative to automatically listing views if you already know which ones you want to work with and there would otherwise be too many to work with.
Specify the views you want in a comma-separated list. Each view should be a valid SQL identifier with any special characters escaped using square brackets, double-quotes or backticks. For example, Views=ViewA,[ViewB/WithSlash],WithCatalog.WithSchema.`ViewC With Space`.
Note that when connecting to a data source with multiple schemas or catalogs, you will need to provide the fully qualified name of the table in this property, as in the last example here, to avoid ambiguity between tables that exist in multiple catalogs or schemas.
This section provides a complete list of the Miscellaneous properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
| Property | Description |
| MaxRows | Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time. |
| Other | These hidden properties are used only in specific use cases. |
| PageSize | Specifies how many records the SAP BusinessObjects BI will return on a single page. |
| PseudoColumns | This property indicates whether or not to include pseudo columns as columns to the table. |
| SupportEnhancedSQL | This property enhances SQL functionality beyond what can be supported through the API directly, by enabling in-memory client-side processing. |
| Timeout | The value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation. |
| UserDefinedViews | A filepath pointing to the JSON configuration file containing your custom views. |
Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time.
Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time.
These hidden properties are used only in specific use cases.
The properties listed below are available for specific use cases. Normal driver use cases and functionality should not require these properties.
Specify multiple properties in a semicolon-separated list.
| DefaultColumnSize | Sets the default length of string fields when the data source does not provide column length in the metadata. The default value is 2000. |
| ConvertDateTimeToGMT | Determines whether to convert date-time values to GMT, instead of the local time of the machine. |
| RecordToFile=filename | Records the underlying socket data transfer to the specified file. |
Specifies how many records the SAP BusinessObjects BI will return on a single page.
Specifies how many records the SAP BusinessObjects BI will return on a single page.
This property indicates whether or not to include pseudo columns as columns to the table.
This setting is particularly helpful in Entity Framework, which does not allow you to set a value for a pseudo column unless it is a table column. The value of this connection setting is of the format "Table1=Column1, Table1=Column2, Table2=Column3". You can use the "*" character to include all tables and all columns; for example, "*=*".
This property enhances SQL functionality beyond what can be supported through the API directly, by enabling in-memory client-side processing.
When SupportEnhancedSQL = true, the Sync App offloads as much of the SELECT statement processing as possible to SAP BusinessObjects BI and then processes the rest of the query in memory. In this way, the Sync App can execute unsupported predicates, joins, and aggregation.
When SupportEnhancedSQL = false, the Sync App limits SQL execution to what is supported by the SAP BusinessObjects BI API.
The Sync App determines which of the clauses are supported by the data source and then pushes them to the source to get the smallest superset of rows that would satisfy the query. It then filters the rest of the rows locally. The filter operation is streamed, which enables the Sync App to filter effectively for even very large datasets.
The Sync App uses various techniques to join in memory. The Sync App trades off memory utilization against the requirement of reading the same table more than once.
The Sync App retrieves all rows necessary to process the aggregation in memory.
The value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation.
If Timeout = 0, operations do not time out. The operations run until they complete successfully or until they encounter an error condition.
If Timeout expires and the operation is not yet complete, the Sync App throws an exception.
A filepath pointing to the JSON configuration file containing your custom views.
User Defined Views are defined in a JSON-formatted configuration file called UserDefinedViews.json. The Sync App automatically detects the views specified in this file.
You can also have multiple view definitions and control them using the UserDefinedViews connection property. When you use this property, only the specified views are seen by the Sync App.
This User Defined View configuration file is formatted as follows:
For example:
{
"MyView": {
"query": "SELECT * FROM MyCustomReport WHERE MyColumn = 'value'"
},
"MyView2": {
"query": "SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE Id IN (1,2,3)"
}
}
Use the UserDefinedViews connection property to specify the location of your JSON configuration file. For example:
"UserDefinedViews", "C:\\Users\\yourusername\\Desktop\\tmp\\UserDefinedViews.json"