Define data sources

A Data source definition stores the configuration information for how Insight should connect to a specific data source. The information includes the data source type, connection type, and login credentials.

Studio can connect to a variety of data sources, including relational databases, flat files, web services, and Excel.

  1. Do one of the following:
    • On the Guide in the main panel, click Add new data source.

    • On the Documents Tree, right-click Data Sources and select New Data source.

  2. Assign a name to the data source and click OK.
  3. On the Database type menu, select the applicable database type. If your database is not on the list, select Others and then enter the Provider Information, such as ODBC, OleDb, or DSN.
  4. On the Provider name list, select the applicable connection type for the database selected in the previous step.
  5. In the Server Name field, enter the name of the server where the database resides. For example, if you are using SQL Express, the server name is <computer name>\<server name> such as My_PC\SQLEXPRESS. For the SAP BW database type, see SAP BW database type.
  6. In the Database Name field, enter the name of the database to which you want to connect.
  7. If applicable, enter the user name and password for the database specified in the previous step.
    Note You can select Windows Authentication instead of a username and password. To do so, configure the Insight Windows services and IIS services with a user name and password with appropriate permissions.
  8. Click Connect to run a test connection to ensure that Studio can connect to the database. If a connection is established, the following behavior applies:
    • If the data source contains one schema, a list of accessible tables contained within the data source appears.

    • If the data source contains several schemas, the circular indicator turns green.

Important Analysis Services and SAP BW databases can only be used for MDX metrics.