TIBCO Spotfire^® data access FAQ

Our Spotfire data access FAQ is available here.

The data access overview in the Spotfire Analyst help is available here.

TIBCO Spotfire self-service access data sources

Self-service data connectors allow Spotfire users to easily connect to and analyze data from relational databases, cubes, OData sources, and Hadoop.

Most data connectors need a corresponding ODBC or ADO .Net driver. If no driver has been installed, you will see that the connector is greyed out in the Add Data Tables list in Spotfire Analyst.

• Download database drivers

• TIBCO Spotfire Connectors documentation (security, functions, data types, connection methods)

• TIBCO Spotfire Connectors (Spotfire 7.6 and earlier - installation manual, release notes)

• TIBCO Spotfire Connectors system requirements (data sources, driver versions, mapping between connectors and Spotfire versions)

• How to connect to Google Analytics with Spotfire - Wiki page with Youtube video and detailed instructions

• Hadoop and big data analytics (white paper)

• How to Navigate Big Data with Ad Hoc Visual Discovery (white paper)

Spotfire includes self-service connectivity to a range of data sources via Spotfire Connectors. Most connectors support visual data discovery while leaving data in the data source (in-database). All relational connectors support bringing in slices of data up front or on-demand based on user interactions in Spotfire clients. These are the available connectors today in Spotfire Cloud:

Spotfire JDBC data sources (Information Services / Designer)

TIBCO Spotfire accesses data in virtually any JDBC compliant data source. Connections are configured in the Spotfire Analyst client using the Information Designer tool. Configured connections reside on the Spotfire Server and clients connect through the Spotfire Server as well.

Useful information:

• Data source templates

• Information Designer in the TIBCO Spotfire user manual

Spotfire ODBC data sources

TIBCO Spotfire accesses data in virtually any ODBC compliant data source. Database vendors like Simba, Progress and CDATA offer ODBC drivers to a wide range of data sources and combined with Spotfire's ODBC support data can be analyzed in data sources such as MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB, HBase, Google BigQuery, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many more.

Useful information:

• ODBC Data Sources in the TIBCO Spotfire user manual

OLAP data sources

TIBCO Spotfire accesses data in several OLAP data sources.

Useful information:

• Working with Cubes in Spotfire

• Best practices for the Spotfire connector for SAP BW

Apache Cassandra and MongoDB

A summary of how to connect to MongoDB is available here.

For self service access to Apache Cassandra and MongoDB, please use TIBCO's ODBC drivers available at:

TIBCO eDelivery

or

TIBCO Spotfire Cloud (Spotfire Cloud or trial version account is needed)

Connect by following the instructions in https://docs.tibco.com/emp/sf_drivers/1.2.0/doc/pdf/TIB_drivers_ConnectingToODBCDataSourceUsingSpotfire.pdf.

JDBC drivers are available from Progress and Magnitude (Simba):

• https://www.progress.com/connectors/mongodb

• http://www.simba.com/drivers/mongodb-odbc-jdbc

• https://www.progress.com/connectors/apache-cassandra

• http://www.simba.com/drivers/cassandra-odbc-jdbc

The JDBC driver are used in combination with Spotfire Information Services (see Spotfire JDBC data sources above). Compared with ODBC Spotfire Information Services adds support for on-demand, server side driver installation and centralized governance of data models.

Spotfire Analyst Data File Formats

• ADO.NET
• Comma-Separated Values (.csv)
• ESRI Shape Files (.shp)
• Microsoft Access Databases (.mdb, .mde)
• Microsoft Excel Workbooks (.xls, .xlsx, .xlsm)
• SAS Data Files (.sas7bdat, .sd2)
• Spotfire DecisionSite Files (.sfs)
• Spotfire Text Data Format (.stdf)
• Spotfire Binary Data Format (.sbdf)
• Text (.txt)
• TIBCO Formvine
• Universal Data Link (.udl)

MapR Drill

MapR Drill can be accessed using JDBC in production use cases, see Spotfire JDBC data sources above. MapR Drill can also be accessed using the ODBC driver for Windows in certain use cases, see Drill's  Installing the Driver on Windows document.

Microsoft SharePoint and OData

Spotfire has a native connector for OData and SharePoint lists. For more information see the Spotfire self-service access data sources section above.

OSIsoft PI System

TIBCO Spotfire allows you to analyze OSIsoft PI System events either as they occur, using the context of past data for reference, or as part of a data discovery phase, combined with other data, to find root causes, trends and outliers. OSIsoft and Spotfire have worked collaboratively to build and test these solutions in the field.

By combining OSIsoft PI data ‘at-rest’ (either directly from PI Server or via Asset Framework (AF)) with data from ERP systems such as SAP, relational databases, Hadoop and unstructured sources, an organization can obtain a more holistic view of the business, allowing users to extract more meaningful insights and make educated business decisions – and thereby mitigate risks of plant failure, reduce maintenance costs, and drive improved operations.

By connecting directly with real-time streaming OSIsoft PI data ’in-motion’, via TIBCO StreamBase, organizations can compare actual readings with sophisticated statistical models that will help predict performance, downtime and running costs. Moreover, real time adjustments, alerts and instructions can be generated to avoid failures and risk or to improve operational efficiency.

See the Getting Data into Spotfire from OSIsoft PI, Asset Framework, and Event Frames Wiki page to download the OSIsoft PI custom data source.

An alternative to the custom data source above is to use the PI JDBC driver that OSIsoft provides. It's used together with Spotfire Information Services.

For more information about our OSIsoft PI System integration please contact your Spotfire sales representative or use our Contact Us form.

SAP BW

Spotfire connects to SAP BW using the self-service connector for SAP BW or Spotfire Advanced Data Services.

A lot of valuable information is available in the Working with Cubes in Spotfire document.

For a guide to how to configure single sign on using Kerberos for Spotfire with SAP BW please see this WiKi.

Best practices for the Spotfire connector for SAP BW

SAP Business Objects Universe

This is one way of connecting TIBCO Spotfire to SAP Business Objects Universe

Live Datamart Custom Data Source

This Custom Datasource is a free, downloadable TIBCO Spotfire Extension that enables users to build interactive Spotfire visualizations using data stored in TIBCO® Live Datamart.

Read and write Spotfire data extracts, SBDF files

You could integrate read and write support for Spotfire Binary Data Format files (.sbdf) into your application. Source code, samples and documentation is available here:

• TIBCO Spotfire C# SBDF Library

• TIBCO Spotfire Java SBDF Library

Live monitoring of what's stored in the Library

This great Wiki gives an example of how you can monitor your data sources stored in the Library:

https://community.tibco.com/wiki/tibco-spotfire-metadata-queries