🕐 5 min read
The basic authentication boilerplate is a connector that ingests Excel data and uses the built-in TACO Excel file parser from a basic authentication endpoint.
To create your basic authentication connector, we recommend that you first create a sample basic authentication connector and edit the generated files. It’s easier to get all the files and directory structure your connector needs by just using an existing example.
To create your basic authentication connector, do the following steps.
Enter the following command to create the connector:
taco create my-basic-auth-connector --boilerplate basic-auth
This creates a directory with the earthquake data boilerplate code, which is included with the toolkit.
my-basic-auth-connector
directory.
cd my-basic-auth-connector
Build the connector by entering the following command:
taco build
This command clears any previous or existing build caches, then installs the dependencies, then builds the frontend code and the backend code (handlers), then copies the connector.json file (the configuration file).
In your new basic authentication connector directory, find and open the connector.json
file.
{
"name": "my-basic-auth-connector",
"version": "1.0.0",
"tableau-version": {
"min": "2022.3"
},
"vendor": {
"name": "vendor-name",
"support-link": "https://vendor-name.com",
"email": "support@vendor-name.com"
},
"permission": {
"api": {
"https://*.usgs.gov/": [
"GET",
"POST",
"HEAD"
]
}
},
"auth": {
"type": "custom"
},
"window": {
"height": 800,
"width": 600
}
}
Make the following changes:
Change the general properties.
Name | Value |
---|---|
name | Your connector’s directory name |
displayName | Your connector’s name. This is the name that appears in the Tableau connectors area. |
version | Your connector’s version |
min | The earliest Tableau version your connector supports |
Change the company properties.
Name | Value |
---|---|
vendor.name | Your company name |
vendor.support-link | Your company’s URL |
vendor.email | Your company’s email |
Change the permissions.
Name | Value |
---|---|
permission.api | The URI for the API that the connector is allowed to access, along with the methods (POST, GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) that the connector is allowed to use. |
Verify the authentication value.
Name | Value |
---|---|
auth.type | Set to custom |
custom
covers basic authentication (username and password) and custom authentication (API keys or tokens). For more information about authentication, see the Authentication section in the Considerations for Building Your Connector topic.
Change the HTML pane size.
Name | Value |
---|---|
window.height | The height of the connector HTML pane |
window.width | The width of the connector HTML pane |
When you open a web data connector in Tableau, the connector displays an HTML page that links to your JavaScript code and to your connector’s handlers. Optionally, this page can also display a user interface for your users to select the data that they want to download.
To create a user interface (UI) for your connector, open the /app/index.html
file and make any edits for your connector.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Basic Auth Sample Connector</title>
<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-store" />
<link rel="icon" href="data:,">
<link href="index.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<script src="index.ts" type="module" defer></script>
</head>
<body>
<p id="error" style="display: block; margin-top: 2em; height: 5px; text-align: center; color: red;"></p>
<div class="box m-auto ">
<div class="card">
<div class="card-header">
Basic Auth Sample Connector
</div>
<div class="card-body">
<label for="userName" class="form-label">User Name</label>
<input type="text" id="username" class="form-control mb-3" placeholder="User Name">
<label for="Password" class="form-label">Password</label>
<input type="password" id="password" class="form-control mb-4" placeholder="Password">
<div class=" text-center">
<button type="button" class="btn btn-success" id="submitButton" disabled>
Please wait while settings load...
</button>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Some notes about what the code is doing:
meta
tag prevents your browser from caching the page.index.css
file is used to simplify styling and formatting.index.ts
file is the code for your connector.input type="text"
is the form field for the username.input type="password"
is the form field for the password.Now that you’ve created a user interface, it’s time to edit the JavaScript code for the connector’s button. The code is in the /app/index.js
file.
The connector object is used to submit data from the connector UI to connector handlers.
const connector = new Connector(() => {
connectorInitialized = true
enableButtonWhenReady()
})
The following code shows how a connector sets variables (for example, secrets, handlerInputs) for the connector object before submitting.
function submit() {
const username = document.querySelector<HTMLInputElement>('#username')?.value
const password = document.querySelector<HTMLInputElement>('#password')?.value
if (!username || !password) {
return
}
connector.secrets = { username, password }
connector.handlerInputs = [
{
fetcher: 'DataFetcher',
parser: 'taco:excel-file-parser',
data: {},
name: 'unique-workbook-name',
},
]
connector.submit()
}
For more information about the Connector object, see Class Connector in the SDK documentation.
If your data is complex and needs preprocessing, use the TACO Toolkit library to prepare your data.
The following is the default code in the handlers/DataFetcher.js
file that gets the data:
import { Fetcher, FetchUtils, FetchOptions, getBasicAuthHeader } from '@tableau/taco-toolkit/handlers'
export default class DataFetcher extends Fetcher {
async *fetch({ secrets }: FetchOptions) {
const { username, password } = secrets
const headers = getBasicAuthHeader(username, password)
// PLACEHOLDER: the url is NOT real endpoint.
// Replace the url with actual endpoint that supports basic auth for corresponding file type.
// Note: the permission setting in connector.json also needs to be updated accordingly.
const url = 'https://www.example.com/api/user'
yield await FetchUtils.loadExcelData(url, { headers })
}
}
For information about FetchUtils.loadExcelData
, see loadExcelData
Enter these commands to build, pack, and run your new connector:
taco build
taco pack
taco run Desktop