Hello, This blog details the steps of using Google Looker to consume data from SAP DataSphere.
PreRequisites:
As a pre-requisite please familiarize yourself with and setup the consumption of
SAP DataSphere data using APIs with Postman. Create a VIEW in SAP DataSphere which you want to access the data from. Ensure that you can access the view’s data from Postman before moving ahead.
Create an instance of Looker using Google Cloud Console
setuplookerinstance
Looker does not provide the ability to connect to oData Services directly. Hence you have to use an intermediate service like
Precog or
Cdata to enable the connection
We used the cdata Connect Cloud OData API.
Step 1: Datasphere Setup
Within DataSphere, set up an OAuth Client. Navigate to System–>Administration
Set the Callback URL to –
http://localhost:33333/. This is required for cdata.
Grab the Authorization and token URLs too from this site. You will need them in the next steps.
Step 2: cdata Setup
Navigate to
cdata Connect Cloud and setup a free trial
https://cloud.cdata.com/docs/Quick-Start-Guide.html
Navigate to your trial and setup a connection. Search for ‘oData’ and select it from the available 158 options
Enter the details as shown
Enter the URL at the individual VIEW level which gets you the data in postman. I was not able to get the ASSET URL to work which could have given me access to all views.
Clicking on Sign-in you should be prompted with a webpage asking for BTP Credentials. Once you enter those you should get logged in with a screen as shown
In case you get errors — make sure you entered the Callback URL correct when you setup the OAuth client in datasphere.
Save your connection.
Now Navigate to Dataexplorer on the left menu and make sure your view is visible and can be queried
Also generate and copy your personal access token(PAT).
Navigate to Settings by clicking the icon on top left right besides the username.
Click on AccessTokens and Create and copy the PAT. This will be used as the password for connecting Looker to cdata.
This completes the connection & configuration on the cdata side.
Step 3: Looker Setup
Now Navigate to your Looker instance
Navigate to Admin–>Database–>connections and add a new connection
Enter the details as shown
note the port number and the host – enter as shown in the screenshot.
host: tcs.cdata.com
port: 14333
database: your cdata connection name from Step 2
Username: your cdata trial ’email’
Enter the Personal Access Token as the password.
Click on Test
You should see the below message on the top of the page if all is in order
Click Connect to create the connection.
Now it is time to explore and make sure we can get to the data of the exposed view
Click on Explore
Select the connection and the view underneath