Guide to Using the OpenAir Business Intelligence Connector

NetSuite’s OpenAir has powerful reporting tools available for your professional services organization to use. But even with the wealth of tools natively available within the platform, there may still be some limitations that keep you from getting exactly the information you want to see, especially when you’re looking for a quick, no-code way to combine OpenAir data with that from other sources.

This is where the OpenAir Business Intelligence Connector comes in. It’s a powerful addition to OpenAir that allows you to push data out of your platform and into a variety of business intelligence (BI) tools – and even to some applications not traditionally considered as BI tools. From there, you can use these tools to manipulate the data as needed or even combine it with data from other applications.

The OpenAir Business Intelligence Connector can be a powerful tool in your tool chest, once you understand what it is, what applications it can be used with, and how to get the most out of it.

What is the OpenAir Business Intelligence Connector

First, you need to be clear on what the OpenAir Business Intelligence Connector is to understand what it does. This feature is a connector to the platform that leverages the OData standard to allow you to connect your OpenAir instance’s data source to an OData server while also preserving permissions as they exist within your platform to restrict visibility to the information.

But what does that really mean? It means any tool you use that can use OData can connect and pull in data from OpenAir reports or list views that you choose to publish for OData access outside of your OpenAir instance.  Importantly, it also means that only the people who would have access to that data within OpenAir will be able to access that information outside of it, as well.

That’s pretty powerful on its own, but the value of this connector doesn’t stop there. Data updates can be done in one of two ways – they can be scheduled once a day or updated manually.  That means that you can automate updates to the data you share outside of OpenAir – once it’s set, you don’t need to worry about it again. That way, the data you are seeing within your BI tools is the most recent data you have, as of the last scheduled update.

What BI Tools Can Be Used with the OpenAir Business Intelligence Connector?

The short answer is any tool that can use the OData standard can access reports and list views that have been published from OpenAir. The OData protocol is required for these systems to talk to one another and send and receive data.

There are hundreds of tools that use the OData protocol, but a few are of note. Specifically, we see many clients using the OpenAir Business Intelligence Connector data with Excel. However, other common tools used include Microsoft BI, Qlik, Tableau, Cognos, SAP, and Informatica.

Tips for Using the Business Intelligence Connector for OpenAir

There are a few things to keep in mind to get the most out of your OpenAir Business Intelligence Connector.

Permissions

While using the connector, you are publishing your reports or list views out to the OData server. That doesn’t mean just anyone can access them, however. For reports, data access can be restricted to only you, also known as private access, to only those that could see the report within OpenAir – called recipient permissions, or with owner’s permissions, meaning that anyone can see exactly what you could see. We recommend that you only use private or recipient permissions to protect your data.

For list views, there are only two levels of permissions. One is the private view, which only allows you to access the data. The other is public view, in which anyone with OpenAir access can view the information. Again, we highly recommend you consider your view permissions carefully when publishing your reports or list views with the connector.

Scheduling

Although we’ve already mentioned that you can schedule updates with the Business Intelligence Connector, it’s such a useful feature that it’s worth calling out again. When you publish your reports and list views you can configure updates to be pushed regularly, without further intervention and without needing to write any code.

Remember, though, that updates can only happen once a day. It’s possible to create workarounds for this, but they can be messy and cause problems should you need to make updates at a later date.

Accessing the Link for OData Access

When accessing your published OpenAir data, you’ll need to tell your BI tool where to look for the data. How you do this will depend on if you are publishing a report or a list view.

When publishing the report, this information will be easy to find. On the dialog that appears where you define how you will publish the data and its permissions, the Business Intelligence Connector provides you with a URL to the OData server and the specific file name for your published report. Appending the file name to the end of the URL will give you the precise location of the report data.

Accessing the list view link is somewhat more complicated. We show an example of how to find the URL and file name for your published list view in our recent webinar, Connecting OpenAir Report Data Connector to Your Other Core Systems with OpenAir Business Intelligence.

Pitfalls to Avoid When Using the Business Intelligence Connector

There are a few gotchas to be aware of when using the connector to publish your OpenAir reports and list views for use in your BI tools.

First, you’ll be required to log into OpenAir using your credentials to access restricted reports and views. This can be tricky in some applications, such as Excel, where the user is only presented with two login fields instead of the OpenAir standard three fields. If the tool you are using only offers two fields, simply prepend your user name with the organization name you use for your OpenAir login, plus a backslash (\). For instance, if your organization is Company A and your login is jdoe, you’d log in with Company A \ jdoe, and then enter your password into the second field.

Another thing to be aware of in regards to logging in to access the OData from your reports or list views is that those using SAML or single sign-on cannot use the data from outside tools. Your administrator can change account access at the login level. If you’d like to use the OData in your BI tools, you’ll need to have your admin switch you away from single sign-on.

You’ll also want to note that the connector only works with applications that are using OData version 4. While OData version 3 is quite old, and it’s unlikely that you’re using an application that uses it, it is still something to note.

Other pitfalls, like request limits, are discussed further in our webinar on the connector.

Conclusion

The OpenAir Business Intelligence Connector is a powerful addition to your professional services automation platform. Using it, you’ll have the ability to view and combine data in any way that your BI tools, including Excel, will allow. It will also make it easier for business teams and leaders without OpenAir access to see crucial data alongside information from other parts of the business to help drive intelligent revenue and strategic decisions. Our webinar, Connecting OpenAir Report Data Connector to Your Other Core Systems with OpenAir Business Intelligence, covers these points and includes a demo of connecting a published OpenAir report to Excel.

Looking for help setting up the OpenAir Business Intelligence Connector or in training your users on how to make the most of this tool in your data arsenal? Contact Top Step. We love helping users find ways to use their platform more efficiently and in the ways that work best with their own workflows, and we’d be happy to help your business, too.