Spotfire® User Guide

Connector for Spotfire® Data Streams – Features and settings

You can connect to and access streaming data with the connector for Spotfire® Data Streams. On this page, you can find information about the capabilities, available settings, and things to keep in mind when you work with data connections to Spotfire Data Streams.

Page content

Connector features

The following functionality is available when you access data with the connector for Spotfire Data Streams.

Feature Supported?
Load methods
  • Import (in-memory)
  • External (in-database)
  • On-demand
Custom queries No
Stored procedures No
Custom connection properties No
Single sign-on with identity provider No
Authoring in web client No
Included in Spotfire distribution on Linux Yes

Data source properties

The following are the supported data source properties that you can configure when you create a data connection with the connector for Spotfire Data Streams.

Option Description
Server or stream URL The Spotfire Data Streams server or the specific data stream that you want to connect to. This can either be a server, a server address, or a URL to a data stream on TIBCO Cloud.
When you enter a server URL, you can specify a port number. Add it directly after the server name preceded by colon. For example: 
https://my-database-server.com:10081
If you do not specify a port number, the default port number 10080 will be used. When you enter a URL to a data stream, you must provide the URL to the specific data stream on TIBCO Cloud. For example: 
 https://my-streaming-data-url.com:443/api/v1/streams/<GUID>/runtime/connect
Authentication mode The authentication method to use when logging in to the Spotfire Data Streams server or TIBCO Cloud Data Streams.
No authentication
Connect to the data source without providing any credentials.
Username and password
Enter the credentials for a database user in the data source for authentication.
When you open an analysis that uses a connection with the authentication mode Username and password, you are prompted to log in to the data source with your credentials.
Note: With Username and password authentication, you can store credentials, unencrypted, as part of the analysis file. If credentials are found in the analysis file, they will be used to automatically authenticate against the database. If the authentication with embedded credentials fails, you are not prompted to enter other credentials.
Windows authentication
Connect to the data source as the Windows user that is currently logged in on your computer, for automatic authentication. The access token of the logged in Windows user is used for authentication.
Note: If your Spotfire Data Streams server is configured with Kerberos for authentication, you can use this authentication mode.
TIBCO Cloud™ Authentication
[You can only use this authentication mode when connecting to TIBCO Cloud Data Streams.]
When you use an on-premises installation of Spotfire:
Launches the TIBCO Cloud login procedure in a new tab in your web browser. Then you can authorize Spotfire to access your TIBCO Cloud Data Streams data.
Requires that you have a TIBCO Cloud Data Streams subscription in the same organization as the specific data stream you want to access.

Use TLS/SSL Select this check box to use TLS/SSL encryption when connecting to the Spotfire Data Streams server.
Use compression Select this check box to use data compression in the connection.

Your selection for the Use compression option can have an impact on the connection performance. This might depend on, for example, if the Spotfire Data Streams server is located on your local network or far away.

Note: By default, the Use compression check box is selected.

Supported data types

When you are setting up a connection to an external data source, Spotfire needs to map the data types in the data source to data types in Spotfire. The following are the data types that the Spotfire Data Streams connector supports.

Database data type Spotfire data type
blob Binary
bool Boolean
timestamp DateTime or TimeSpan

The timestamp data type in Spotfire Data Streams can represent either an absolute timestamp, or an interval of time. Columns with timestamp data should be mapped to either the Spotfire data type DateTime or TimeSpan accordingly.

Absolute timestamp data = DateTime

Time interval data = TimeSpan

By default, timestamp columns map to the DateTime data type in Spotfire. You must manually change the type mapping for timestamp columns with time interval type data to TimeSpan, when you create the connection. If such columns are mapped as DateTime, the data in the column will not load correctly.
Note: Timestamp columns that contain both absolute timestamp data and time interval data cannot be loaded.
int Integer
long LongInteger
double Real
string String

Supported functions

Supported functions are the functions that you can use when you work with in-database data tables, for example for calculated columns and custom expressions.

Note: Some supported functions might not be possible to use with your database. This depends on what functions are available in the database, which often differs between database versions and types.

The following are the functions that the Spotfire Data Streams connector supports.

Function type Functions supported
Date and Time DayOfMonth, DayOfWeek, Hour, Minute, Month, Second, Year, date, days, epoch, format_time, from_gmtime, from_localtime, from_unixtime, get_day_of_month, get_day_of_week, get_day_of_year, get_hour, get_millisecond, get_minute, get_month, get_second, get_year, hours, milliseconds, minutes, now, parse_time, seconds, set_day_of_month, set_day_of_week, set_hour, set_minute, set_month, set_second, set_year, strftime, strpinterval, strptime, time, this_month, timezoneoffset, to_milliseconds, to_seconds, today, today_utc, weeks, yesterday
Conversion Boolean, DateTime, Integer, LongInteger, Real, String, TimeSpan
Math abs, acos, asin, atan, atan2, bitand, bitnot, bitor, bitxor, black_scholes, cbrt, ceil, choose, compound_interest, cos, cosh, exp, expm1, factorial, floor, gaussianrandom, isnan, ln, log10, log1p, lshift, notnan, permute, pow, random, round, rshift, sign, sin, sinh, sqrt, tan, tanh, to_degrees, to_radius, unsignedshift
Operators +, -, *, /, %
Statistical avg, avgif, correlation_coefficient, correlation_coefficientp, count, count_distinct, countif, countlong, covariance, covariancep, firstnonnullval, firstval, intercept, lastnonnullval, lastval, max, min, percentile, product, slope, stdev, stdevp, sum, sumif, variance, variancep, vwap, withmax, withmin
Text contains, endswith, indexof, isempty, lastindexof, lower, ltrim, randomstring, regexmatch, regexmatch_ignorecase, regexplace, replace, rtrim, startswith, strlen, strresizetrunc, substr, upper
Utility coalesce, great_circle_distance, hash, isnull, jsonpath, length, md5, notnull, uuid
Copyright © Cloud Software Group, Inc. All rights reserved.