Connecting to Data


Preparing Spreadsheets for Upload

Uploading spreadsheet data to WebFOCUS can be made easier if you first familiarize yourself with the data file, and then ensure that it is properly formatted for upload, so that geographic data, hierarchies, and other important aspects of your data are recognized. This is important because the synonym created for your uploaded data provides the basis for quality analytical content.

You can use the following techniques to prepare your data for the uploading process.

Adapter for Db2

The Adapter for Db2 can now be configured to use JDBC in addition to CLI and CAF. Any user having problems configuring the adapter to use CLI can now avoid those problems by configuring the adapter using JDBC.

For more information, see Chapter 19, Using the Adapter for Db2 in the Adapter Administration documentation.

Adapter for Presto™

The Adapter for Presto™ is a distributed SQL query engine designed to query large data sets. The adapter converts application requests into JDBC calls and returns optimized answer sets to the requesting application. For example, a user with data in Hadoop® can use Presto to access that data, as it provides much faster access than Hive™ and other alternatives.

For more information, see Chapter 77, Using the Adapter for Presto in the Adapter Administration documentation.

Video: How to Pivot Data


Data sources can contain repeating columns, or groups of columns. You can use the pivot option to transform these columns or groups of columns into rows.


From the Home Page, click the Data category in the Action Bar, and then click the Upload Data button.
From the Legacy Home Page, in the Resources tree, right-click a domain or folder, point to Upload, and then click Data.


Let’s upload a file from the Home Page.

Click the Upload Data button.

The Upload page opens. 

Video: How to Upload Data

This video demonstrates how to upload your data to a target environment.

From the Home Page, click the Data category in the Action Bar, and then click the Upload Data button.

From the Legacy Home Page, in the Resources tree, right-click a domain or folder, point to Upload, and then click Data.

You can also access the Upload workflow from within WebFOCUS Designer and WebFOCUS InfoAssist.

Video: How to Connect to Data

This video demonstrates how to configure adapters to various data sources, and how to create Base Synonyms and Cluster Synonyms.

From the Home Page, click the Data category in the Action Bar, and then click the Connect button.
From the Legacy Home Page, in the Resources tree, right-click a domain or folder, point to Metadata, and then click Connect to Data.
You can also access the Connect to Data workflow from within WebFOCUS Designer and WebFOCUS InfoAssist. 

Video: How to Join Data

In WebFOCUS Designer, you can Join data when creating a Chart or Workbook, and create new content from your joined data. In Release 8206, an enhanced Join Tool is available, providing greater analytical and comparative capabilities.

Editing Metadata

Metadata is data about data, and describes the characteristics of your data sources, or synonyms. Metadata can be generated whenever data is created, acquired, added to, deleted from, or updated.

You can edit previously created synonyms in the following ways:

  • From the WebFOCUS Home Page, click the Data category on the Action Bar, and then click Metadata metadata.