Analyze Reckon Data in Cognos Analytics

Cognos Analytics, powered by IBM Watson®, empowers users to cleanse and establish connections with their data while creating visualizations. When integrated with CData Connect Cloud, users gain immediate, real-time connectivity between cloud-based data sources and Cognos Analytics, facilitating data management, visualization, analytics, and more. This article provides step-by-step guidance on connecting to Reckon via CData Connect Cloud and subsequently analyzing Reckon data within Cognos Analytics.

NOTE: These instructions require Cognos Analytics 11.2.4 or higher

CData Connect Cloud offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for Reckon, enabling users to perform real-time analysis on Reckon data within Cognos without the need to replicate data to a natively supported database. Equipped with built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Reckon. This harnesses server-side processing to promptly provide the requested Reckon data.

Configure Reckon Connectivity for Cognos Analytics

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

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

2. Select "Reckon" from the Add Connection panel

4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Reckon 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 Reckon data from Cognos Analytics.

Connect to Reckon from Cognos Analytics

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Cognos Analytics to analyze live Reckon data.

Download and install the CData Connect Cloud JDBC driver

1. Open the Integrations page of CData Connect Cloud.
2. Search for and select JDBC.
3. Download and run the setup file.
4. When the installation is complete, copy the JAR file (cdata.jdbc.connect.jar) from the installation directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\CData\JDBC Driver for CData Connect\lib) to the "drivers" folder in your Cognos Analytics installation directory.

Configure the Connection to CData Connect Cloud

1. Open IBM Cognos and navigate to Manage > Data server connections.
2. Click the icon to add a data server.
3. Select CData Connect Cloud.
4. Set JDBC URL to the appropriate connection string. For example:

       jdbc:connect:AuthScheme=Basic;user=username;password=PAT;
     

5. Set Driver class name to "cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver"
6. Create and store authenticate credentials by selecting an authentication method
   • Set Username to your CData Connect Cloud username (e.g., [email protected])
   • Set Password to the PAT you previously generated.
7. Click Test connection to confirm that the connection succeeds.

At this point, you are ready to analyze and visualize Reckon data in Cognos Analytics. For more information about using Cognos Analytics, please refer to the Cognos Analytics documentation.

Live Access to Reckon Data for Analytics

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Reckon data from Cognos Analytics. You can create new visualizations, build reports, and more — without replicating Reckon data.

Try CData Connect Cloud and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.