Overview

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

The OCF connector for TIBCO Spotfire is available as a Zip file from Alation Customer Portal (requires a login via the Alation Customer Portal). The connector file can be uploaded and installed in the Alation application. Only Alation users with access to the Customer Portal can access the Alation Connector Hub. If you can’t access the Customer Portal, contact Alation Support.

This connector should be used to catalog TIBCO Spotfire as a BI source on Alation on-premise and Cloud Service instances. It extracts and catalogs such BI objects as:

• Library folder and sub-folders that include DXP & SBDF Reports,

• Report preview and connection details are extracted for DXP Reports.

• Connection Details include the names of the data sources and tables involved.

• Lineage depicts the relationship between the data source and reports,

• The report information link is added at the report level as a source comment.

After the metadata is extracted, it is represented in the data catalog as a hierarchy of catalog pages under the parent data source. Alation users can leverage the full catalog functionality to search for and find the extracted metadata, curate the corresponding catalog pages, create documentation about the data source, and exchange information.

Team

The following administrators are required to install this connector:

• Alation Server Admin:

  • Ensures that Alation Connector Manager is installed and running or installs it.

  • Installs the connector.

  • Creates and configures a TIBCO Spotfire BI source in the catalog.

  • Performs initial extraction and prepares the data source for Alation users.

• TIBCO Spotfire administrator:

  • Creates service account

  • Registers API client

Scope

The table below describes which metadata objects this connector extracts and which operations are supported.

Feature	Scope	Availability
Folders	Catalog folders as BI folders.	Yes
Subfolders	Catalog subfolders as BI folders.	Yes
Filter folders	Users can apply filters on folders.	Yes
Reports	Extract DXP reports based on multisource (SBDF, IL, CSV, XLS,Text, and Database) and SPDF reports as BI reports.	Yes
Report preview	Extract preview/thumbnail of reports as report preview.	Yes
Report fields	Extract report fields as fields and expressions when available.	Yes
Datasource	Extract datasources.	Yes
Filter datasource	Filter based on datasource.	No
Source comments	Extract source comments.	Yes
Source lineage	Lineage between table and BI report.	No
Popularity		No

TIBCO Spotfire Object Hierarchy

The following diagram shows the hierarchy of TIBCO Spotfire objects and how they are cataloged in Alation:

TIBCO Spotfire APIs

SOAP API Methods

The table below lists the TIBCO Spotfire SOAP API V 12.0 < methods used by this connector to extract metadata from the TIBCO Spotfire server:

Type	Category	Endpoint	Description
Folders and Dashboard (Reports & Sub reports)	Admin	/api/soap/LibraryService	LibraryService Interface includes the methods to list all the LibraryItems, Extract all the Library folder child items and LibraryProperties as well. Below is the list of methods that are called: getRootItem getChildItems getItems
Data Source,Report Columns, Connection, and Information Link	Admin	/api/soap/LibraryService	LibraryService Interface calls the searchItems method based on serachExpresession it returns all items, up to the given limit, in the given location that matches the given search expression. Only items that the calling user has access to will be returned.
Authorization	Authorization	/spotfire/oauth2/auth	Authorization using Auth.
Authorization	Authorization	/spotfire/oauth2/token	Authorization using Token.
Permission Enforcement	Admin	/api/soap/UserDirectoryService	UserDirectoryService Interface contains methods to handle different user and group-related operations of TIBCO. This may include searching for groups or users, listing them, finding members of a group, etc.

References:

• Library Service

• SOAP API

• UserDirectoryService

REST API Methods

The table below lists the TIBCO Spotfire REST API V14.0 methods used by this connector to extract metadata from the TIBCO Spotfire server:

Type	Category	Endpoint	Description
Authorization	Authorization	/spotfire/oauth2/token	Authorization using Token.
Download API	Admin	(GET) /rest/library/v2/items/{itemId}/contents	Downloads the content of a library item by ItemID.
Search API / Query library Items	Admin	(GET) /rest/library/v2/items	Returns all items, up to the provided limit, in the given location that matches the given search expression. Only items that the calling user has access to will be returned.