You can establish a direct connection to Microsoft SQL Server to pull in data into xP&A.

It is possible to use an SSH tunnel for the connection.

This article contains a description of the prerequisites and the individual steps of the set-up process.

The fields that are pulled in must be defined during the set-up process using a database query. For a detailed instruction on how to structure such a query, see Defining Database Queries.

If your database is behind a firewall, you have to whitelist the static IP address before connecting Microsoft SQL Server with xP&A. Which IP address needs to be whitelisted depends on the region where your Lucanet instance is hosted:

RegionIP address to whitelist
eu-central-152.59.129.235
ap-southeast-113.214.111.217
us-east-13.223.155.63, 98.87.131.112, 44.219.125.183
eu-central-251.34.5.247
eu-north-113.51.154.160

The correct IP address(es) to whitelist matching your region is shown in the New Data Source dialog when you create the connection, so please check this information on the user interface.

If you want to establish a connection via an SSH tunnel, a user called causal must be created on the remote SSH server and the following public key must be associated with it:

ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIP9DCR3hBNU/01YU9iK1JMKx2HNsK1+3ChWj3yBqb+Kr causal

To connect to Microsoft SQL Server:

1

Choose one of the following options:

  • Open the Data workspace from the overview on the start page and click + New.
Shows the start page of Lucanet xP&A. Highlighted are the buttons that need to be used to create a new data source connection from the start page.
New data source connection from the Data workspace
  • Open the model into which you would like to integrate the data, click the + sign next to Data in the overview, and choose New data source:
Shows the view of a model. Highlighted are the buttons that need to be used to create a new data source connection from the model view.
New data source connection from within a model
2

In the Data sources dialog, open the BI/Database tab and choose Microsoft SQL Server:

Shows the Data Sources dialog. Highlighted in red is the 'BI/Database' tab.
'BI/Database' tab
3

The New Data Source dialog is displayed as follows:

Shows the 'New Data Source' dialog for an MS SQL Server connection
'New Data Source' dialog
4

Configure the steps as described in the following section.

5

Click Create data source.

The following steps are required to set up the data source:

1

Choose a connection

Choose an existing connection, or, if you have not configured a connection yet, click New Connection and enter the following in the New Microsoft SQL Server connection dialog:

  • Microsoft SQL Server database host name without port and database
  • Microsoft SQL Server database port
  • N ame of the database to which you want to connect
  • Database user name
  • Database user password
  • Whether to use encryption when connecting to Microsoft SQL Server
2

Complete the query form

Enter the following:

  • Data Source Name
  • Query to define the fields which are to be pulled in. For more information, see Defining Database Queries.
  • Name of the Date column, which must be one of Microsoft SQL Server's date formats
  • Names of the columns that contain variables(which must have a numeric data type.)

Any remaining columns will be treated as dimensions, and must have a string data type.

An exception is the cohort dimension, which must be a date, with the column header explicitly labelled Cohort.