Real time Salesforce reporting via Pentaho BI Native JDBC - Are you serious?

Yes.

Gartner is talking about it.

Salesforce is talking about it.

Many users in the Pentaho community are aware of the Salesforce.com input using Pentaho Data Integration (Kettle ETL).  This is certainly a competent first step.  But now Progress DataDirect has completely changed the game by enabling real time reporting against corporate data in Salesforce.com via native JDBC.  We are now in a full sprint within the industry's race to Business Intelligence 2.0.  And Progress Software knows a thing or two about operational responsiveness.  Pentaho also promotes responsiveness through Agile BI, and hired Samuel Hon from Progress Software as VP of professional services in early 2011.  Both Pentaho and Salesforce.com know Progress DataDirect, and you should too!

This tutorial shows you how to deploy ConnectXE for JDBC Salesforce.com driver into your Pentaho Environment, configure Salesforce as a native JDBC data source, and inspect the metadata layer.

The preliminary steps are: 1. Install Pentaho Enterprise Edition 3.8.

2 . Install Progress DataDirect ConnectXE for JDBC using the instructions in the Progress DataDirect Connect for JDBC Installation Guide.  Click here to download a free 15-day trial.

3. Configure Pentaho for use with ConnectXE for JDBC Salesforce.com drivers (Same steps apply for any DataDirect Connect for JDBC Type 5 drivers including Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, and MySQL).  Copy the driver JAR files into the various Pentaho tools and servers.  Download my useful BAT script to make deployment easier on Windows.

4. Restart the Pentaho Enterprise Console to complete configuration.  Login to Enterprise Console and click “Administration” and then “Database Connections”

Click the “Plus” icon to add a new database connection.  Select the Driver Class as com.ddtek.jdbc.sforce.SForceDriver from the drop down menu, and specify the connection URL. jdbc:datadirect:sforce://login.salesforce.com

Click “Test” to test connect to Salesforce.com.

Next, launch the MetaData Editor to model the business layers.  Select Connection Type as "Generic Database" and Access as "Native (JDBC)".  Then pass the settings similar to what was configured in Enterprise Console.

Import Salesforce "Tables"

Expand the physical data layer to see "Columns" in Account "Table".

Now you can begin designing your reports as if Salesforce.com is any other corporate JDBC data source.

Other Key Benefits:

• Combine Salesforce data with other data sources.
• View current and historical data about customers side-by-side.
• Reconcile data across systems to gain complete view of customers.
• Supplement data warehouse data with up-to-the-minute information.
• Enhance Salesforce reporting with a full breadth of BI capabilities from Pentaho Agile BI.

Yes, we seriously integrated Salesforce.com as a native JDBC data source for use with Pentaho.   I hope having real time Salesforce data in high performance reporting for your organization will get you talking to your business users and executive teams today!