Create Dashboards and Visualize Live Airtable Data in Geckoboard

Geckoboard is a business intelligence tool that simplifies the visualization of key performance indicators (KPIs) by creating live dashboards. It allows teams to consolidate data from various sources - such as Salesforce, Snowflake, Google Analytics, and spreadsheets - and display it in a visually engaging and easy-to-understand format. Designed for simplicity and clarity, Geckoboard helps businesses monitor performance, track goals, and make data-driven decisions.

When used with CData Connect Cloud, you gain instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Airtable data from Geckoboard for dashboards, monitoring, visualizations, and more. This article explains how to connect to Airtable and create visualizations using Airtable data in Geckoboard.

CData Connect Cloud offers a seamless SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for Airtable, enabling you to effortlessly create dashboards and visualizations using live Airtable data in Geckoboard. While building visualizations, Geckoboard requires SQL queries to retrieve the necessary data. With built-in optimized data processing, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (such as filters and JOINs) directly to Airtable, utilizing server-side processing for fast and efficient data retrieval of Airtable data.

Configure Airtable connectivity for Geckoboard

Connectivity to Airtable from Geckoboard is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Airtable data from Geckoboard, we start by creating and configuring a Airtable connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Airtable" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Airtable.

   APIKey, BaseId and TableNames parameters are required to connect to Airtable. ViewNames is an optional parameter where views of the tables may be specified.

   • APIKey : API Key of your account. To obtain this value, after logging in go to Account. In API section click Generate API key.
   • BaseId : Id of your base. To obtain this value, it is in the same section as the APIKey. Click on Airtable API, or navigate to https://airtable.com/api and select a base. In the introduction section you can find "The ID of this base is appxxN2ftedc0nEG7."
   • TableNames : A comma separated list of table names for the selected base. These are the same names of tables as found in the UI.
   • ViewNames : A comma separated list of views in the format of (table.view) names. These are the same names of the views as found in the UI.
   
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Airtable Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect Cloud through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect Cloud. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Airtable data from Geckoboard.

Connect live Airtable data in Geckoboard

Follow these steps to establish a connection from Geckoboard to the CData Connect Cloud Virtual SQL Server API.

1. Log into Geckoboard
2. Add a custom dashboard name and click Add widget
3. Search for "Databases" in the Connect your data search bar
4. Select SQL Server as the Database type
5. Fill in the connection details:
   • Connection name: enter a name for the connection to CData Connect Cloud
   • Host: enter the Virtual SQL Server endpoint: tds.cdata.com
   • Port: : enter 14333
   • Database name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, Airtable1)
   • Username: enter your CData Connect Cloud username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect Cloud interface. For example, [email protected]
   • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page
   
6. Click Connect

After successfully configuring your connection, you can query and visualize your Airtable data.

Visualize live Airtable data in Geckoboard

To visualize live Airtable data in Geckoboard, follow these steps:

1. Write an SQL query to select the specific Airtable data needed for visualization in Paste your SQL query compiler screen

Depending on your use case, you can also generate the desired SQL query using the AI Generator or Query Builder features of CData Connect Cloud


2. Choose the visualization type (Line Chart, Bar Chart, or Column Chart) that best suits your business requirements
3. The selected chart will be displayed on Geckoboard
4. Click the menu (three dots in the top-right corner of the graph) and select Edit to modify the SQL query or set a refresh interval for the chart

Live access to Airtable data from cloud applications

At this stage, you have established a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Airtable data in Geckoboard. This enables you to create dashboards to monitor and visualize your data seamlessly.

For more details on accessing live data from over 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources through cloud applications like Geckoboard, visit our Connect Cloud page.