TIBCO Spotfire® Data Access

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

Spotfire includes self-service connectivity to a wide range of data sources via Spotfire Connectors. Most connectors support visual data discovery using live querying, allowing you to leave big 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.

Data sources currently supported by Spotfire Data Connectors:

For more information on each data source and connector, see TIBCO Spotfire connectors and supported data sources and Spotfire Analyst User's Guide. 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.

Useful information:

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

• 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

• Big Data Analytics with TIBCO Spotfire (Interactive, Visual Analytics for Hadoop and other Big Data Stores)

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

JDBC data sources (Information Services / Information 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

TIBCO Data Virtualization / Spotfire Advanced Data Services

TIBCO Data Virtualization (TDV) integrates disparate data sources in real-time instead of copying their data into a Data Warehouse, allowing you to easily create logical views to integrate and secure data across disparate data sources and tailor it to your analytical needs. TDV connects to virtually any data source and provides business users access to data in Spotfire.

Spotfire Advanced Data Services is delivered as TIBCO Data Virtualization that only allows access to the Spotfire client.

From TIBCO Spotfire 11.6, Business Author and Analyst users are able to browse and open connections to virtualized views directly from the Spotfire Files and data flyout.

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 as part of the Spotfire Server delivery, or downloadable from downloadable from TIBCO Cloud™ Spotfire® (TIBCO Cloud Spotfire or trial subscription is needed).

Connect by following the instructions in https://docs.tibco.com/pub/spotfire_server/latest/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 drivers 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.

TIBCO Spotfire^® Analyst Data File Formats

• 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)

*Note: SAS files are not supported in Spotfire web clients. (system requirements)

Microsoft SharePoint Online

Spotfire has a native connector for accessing Lists located on Microsoft SharePoint Online. 

For access to CSV and Excel files, it is recommended to use the Custom Connector for TIBCO Spotfire® to read data from Microsoft SharePoint Online Files.

Google Drive and Google Shared Drives

For access to Google Sheets, CSV and Excel files located on Google Drive or Google Shared Drives, it is recommende to use the

Custom Connector for TIBCO Spotfire® to read data from Google Sheets.

Azure SQL and Azure Synapse

Spotfire has a native connector for Azure SQL and Azure Synapse.

For using Azure AD Token Authentication or an Azure AD Personal Access Token, it is recommended to use the Custom Connector for TIBCO Spotfire® to Connect to Azure SQL and Azure Synapse.

Azure Databricks

Spofire has a native connector (Apache Spark SQL) for Azure Databricks.

For using Azure AD Token Authentication or an Azure AD Personal Access Token, it is recommended to use the Custom Connector for TIBCO Spotfire® to Connect to Azure Databricks.

Trino

The Custom Connector for TIBCO Spotfire® to Connect to Trino allows Spotfire users to connect to Trino (formerly Presto SQL).  Trino is a highly parallel and distributed query engine, designed for efficient, low latency analytics.

Denodo

The Custom Connector for TIBCO Spotfire® to Connect to Denodo allows Spotfire users to connect to Denodo.  Denodo is a data virtualization platform, providing data integration and abstraction across a broad range of enterprise, cloud, big data and unstructured data sources.

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 TIBCO Data Virtualization.

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

Splunk

Please see this Wiki.

TIBCO Spotfire^® Data Streams (Live Datamart)

TIBCO® Live Datamart has been renamed to TIBCO Spotfire Data Streams. A native connector for streaming analytics is included starting with Spotfire 10.0.

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 Python SBDF Library

• 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