Use Dash to Build to Web Apps on Adobe Target Data

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData Python Connector for Adobe Target, the pandas module, and the Dash framework, you can build Adobe Target-connected web applications for Adobe Target data. This article shows how to connect to Adobe Target with the CData Connector and use pandas and Dash to build a simple web app for visualizing Adobe Target data.

With built-in, optimized data processing, the CData Python Connector offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Adobe Target data in Python. When you issue complex SQL queries from Adobe Target, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Adobe Target and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Adobe Target Data

Connecting to Adobe Target data looks just like connecting to any relational data source. Create a connection string using the required connection properties. For this article, you will pass the connection string as a parameter to the create_engine function.

To connect to Adobe Target, you must provide the Tenant property along with OAuth connection properties mentioned below. Note that while other connection properties can influence processing behavior, they do not affect the ability to connect.

To determine your Tenant name:

1. Log in to Adobe Experience. The URL will look similar to: "https://experience.adobe.com/#/@mycompanyname/preferences/general-section".
2. Extract the value after the "/#/@". In this example, it is "mycompanyname".
3. Set the Tenant connection property to that value.

User Accounts (OAuth)

You must set AuthScheme to OAuthClient for all user account flows.

Note: Adobe authentication via OAuth requires updating your token every two weeks.

All Applications

Obtaining the OAuth Access Token

Set the following properties to connect:

• InitiateOAuth: Set to GETANDREFRESH to automatically perform the OAuth exchange and refresh the OAuthAccessToken as needed.
• OAuthClientId : Set to the client Id assigned when you registered your app.
• OAuthClientSecret : Set to the client secret assigned when you registered your app.
• CallbackURL : Set to the redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: https://localhost:3333

With these settings, the provider obtains an access token from Adobe Target, which it uses to request data. The OAuth values are stored in the location specified by OAuthSettingsLocation, ensuring they persist across connections.

After installing the CData Adobe Target Connector, follow the procedure below to install the other required modules and start accessing Adobe Target through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the required modules and frameworks:

pip install pandas
pip install dash
pip install dash-daq

Visualize Adobe Target Data in Python

Once the required modules and frameworks are installed, we are ready to build our web app. Code snippets follow, but the full source code is available at the end of the article.

First, be sure to import the modules (including the CData Connector) with the following:

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.adobetarget as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the connect function for the CData Adobe Target Connector to create a connection for working with Adobe Target data.

cnxn = mod.connect("Tenant=mycompanyname;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthSettingsLocation=/PATH/TO/OAuthSettings.txt")")

Execute SQL to Adobe Target

Use the read_sql function from pandas to execute any SQL statement and store the result set in a DataFrame.

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM Activities WHERE Type = 'AB'", cnxn)

Configure the Web App

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, we can begin configuring the web app, assigning a name, stylesheet, and title.

app_name = 'dash-adobetargetedataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'

Configure the Layout

The next step is to create a bar graph based on our Adobe Target data and configure the app layout.

trace = go.Bar(x=df.Id, y=df.Name, name='Id')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='Adobe Target Activities Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

Set the App to Run

With the connection, app, and layout configured, we are ready to run the app. The last lines of Python code follow.

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)

Now, use Python to run the web app and a browser to view the Adobe Target data.

python adobetarget-dash.py

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData Python Connector for Adobe Target to start building Python apps with connectivity to Adobe Target data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.adobetarget as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

cnxn = mod.connect("Tenant=mycompanyname;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthSettingsLocation=/PATH/TO/OAuthSettings.txt")

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM Activities WHERE Type = 'AB'", cnxn)
app_name = 'dash-adobetargetdataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'
trace = go.Bar(x=df.Id, y=df.Name, name='Id')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='Adobe Target Activities Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)