Creating a Live Access Connection

Birst Live Access can access data resident in local data marts and data warehouses in real time, without requiring that data to first be uploaded into Birst. See Live Access.

Prior to creating a Live Access connection

You must have the Birst Connect and Live Access products. See Checking Which Products are Installed.

Start with a new space, or select the space to which you want to add the Live Access data.

For an RDBMS:

If using Birst Connect 1.0 Run Birst Connect as a Windows Service when Live Access connections need to remain active.

For XMLA:

In order for Infor Live Access to be able to connect to a local XMLA repository, your local database must be enabled to communicate via HTTP.

To create a new Live Access connection for an RDBMS

Note: With the 5.30.2 release, you can now create Live Access connections using Birst Connect 2.0. For more details, see Birst Connect 2.0 Live Access Connections.

In the space where you want to add the real-time connection, go to Admin - Define Sources - Infor Connect.
Click Create a New Configuration.
Rename the new configuration.
Click Launch.
Birst launches a .jnlp file. If prompted, Keep the file.
Double-click the .jnlp file to launch Infor Connect.
In Infor Connect, under Realtime Connections, click Add Connection.
Select the database type and provide the other required information. For example, a local connection to a SQL Server database.
Important: For security reasons, do not enter a password or other confidential information into the Connection Name or Server Name fields. Enter a password in the Password field only.

When Using SQL Server: For Windows local installations of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or later, the SQL Server Browser Service must be enabled and running, see the Windows Control Panel - Component Services. SQL Server must be configured to listen on TCP-IP, see the SQL Server documentation for instructions.
When Using an Appliance: Check Use Direct Connection to connect directly to a database through a connection pool, rather than using Live Access mode as a proxy. This setting applies only to Appliance installations where the appliance is able to directly connect to the supported database. When using a direct connection to an Appliance, upload the appropriate JDBC driver using the Appliance Admin Center.
Tips:
You can use Birst variables for the server name, database name, and user name.
When using Generic JDBC Database as the Database Type, you can use variables in the Connection string and User name.
When Using Parameterized Connection Strings Using Session Variables, Select the Generic JDBC Database driver.
The generic driver can be used with any JDBC database.
The Filter field for the Generic JDBC Database connection can be used to filter or limit the tables that are fetched when importing metadata. It can be set for the catalog or schema. For example:schema=DBO. Note that the schema name is case sensitive. Semi-colon (;) separated values can be entered.
If you are using the Generic JDBC Database driver to connect to a SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) cube, you can include a parameter in the Connection String field called ExtendedConnectionProperties that allows you to recognize role security from the cube. This can be used to display only the data that the specified roles are allowed to see. For example:
ExtendedConnectionProperties="Roles=US,NonUser;CustomData=HZP6tC7vS8nxfHaqL7”
Note: Birst Connect now supports Redshift SQL type. This change allows for pushdown queries to Redshift databases which further allows Live Access expressions (such as custom groups) to be supported. Fix was applied in 5.29.7 for Birst Connect 1 and in 5.30. for Birst Connect 2.0. Employ the Generic JDBC Database type and select Redshift as the SQL Type.

Click Test to verify the connection.
Click OK. A new connection starts initializing.
The status of the connection is initially red. After the connection is established, the status turns to green.
Tip: After a period of inactivity, the Live Access connection status shows red again.

If you need to modify a connection, click Edit Connection.
Click File - Save Settings.

Important: Do not exit Birst Connect. Minimize it and proceed to Modeling a Live Access Relational Database Source.

Important: The timeout parameter (seconds) is the maximum time duration for which the query will be executed. If the database does not return results in this time-frame, the query execution is halted and a timeout exception occurs.

Tip: The database for which we are connecting via Live Access may also have a defined query timeout parameter that may be less than the timeout parameter defined by our Live Access connection. You may want to verify that your Live Access timeout parameter is less than the database timeout parameter value.

To create a new Live Access connection for XMLA

As of the 5.29 release, you can now use Birst Connect 2.0 Live Access to connect to Infor multi-dimensional cubes via an XMLA metadata interface. Additional cube support will be coming soon.

For more details, see Birst Connect 2 Infor OLAP (XMLA cubes) Live Access Connections.

Note: Set based filters are not supported for XMLA connections.

In the space where you want to add the real-time connection, go to Admin - Define Sources - Infor Connect.
Click Create a New Configuration.
Rename the new configuration.
Click Launch.
Birst launches a .jnlp file. If prompted, Keep the file.
Double-click the .jnlp file to launch Infor Connect.
In Infor Connect, under Realtime Connections, click Add Connection.
Select the XMLA database type and provide the other required information.

Tips:
- In the Server Name field for XMLA real-time connections, enter the HTTP URL you set up during the XMLA HTTP setup process.
- To limit your search path to a single schema you can add schema=[schema name] after the database name in the Database Name field using a semi-colon (;) as a separator. For example: DW;schema=datamart. The schema name is case sensitive.

Click OK. A new connection starts initializing.
The status of the connection is initially red. After the connection is established, the status turns to green.
Tip: After a period of inactivity, the Live Access connection status shows red again.
Click File - Save Settings.

Important: Do not exit Birst Connect. Minimize it and proceed to Modeling a Live Access XMLA Source.