Database Type: SQL
Support: Read only
Introduction
OpenDataSoft provides a ready-to-use SaaS platform to manage the sharing and dissemination of data through its restricted and open sharing ecosystems like open data portals. This cloud-based software helps to transform structured data into API and visualizations thereby aiding public and private sector organizations to host and share their data either for public accessibility or to be circulated privately within a defined group. Its open data portal has a worldwide data network of over 17,000 datasets backed up with strong visualization tools and catalog features.
The VOGO Voice OpenDataSoft connector provides easy access to execute the READ only function.
Prerequisites:
- OpenDataSoft domain name and Dataset ID
- General understanding of the ODS API.
Anatomy of Settings
Defining Settings values for Opendatasoft Connection
Name: It refers to the name assigned to the instance of the connector created.
App Site: Provide the domain name of the data portal hosted by OpenDataSoft from which you need to access the datasets.
It is not required for the users to have an OpenDataSoft account in order to access the public datasets available on the OpenDataSoft portal. For an anonymous user (user without an account) to navigate through the interface of OpenDataSoft domain and browse public datasets in its repository, visit https://data.opendatasoft.com/explore/. Here, the domain name to be used as App Site will be data.opendatasoft.com
API Key: Opendatasoft datasets are accessible through an HTTP REST API. The available APIs supported within the VOGO Voice platform to search and download records are as follows:
- Dataset search API allows you to search datasets in a catalog.
- Dataset lookup API enables you to find a dataset based on its identifier.
- Records search API, on the other hand, search records within a given dataset.
For more information on Available APIs, visit https://help.opendatasoft.com/apis/ods-search-v1/#search-api-v1
Connector Usage
Now that a connector is established it can be used within any interaction flow. Each usage of the connector will allow different configurations to retrieve different results. Those settings can be either static or dynamic based on the needs.
Anatomy of Configuration
Defining Configuration Values for OpenDataSoft connector
Name: The name assigned to identify the OpenDataSoft connector and the results data. The assigned name is used every time the connector is called to action through the components in the interaction builder platform.
Dataset ID: It is a unique identifier used to refer to a specific dataset in the dataset catalog of the OpenDataSoft portal.
For open portals, the dataset catalog can be accessed by all users and its structure remains the same irrespective of the portal. The label of the link to access the catalog will vary for different portals which can often be ‘Data’, ‘Catalogue’, ‘Explore’ or ‘Datasets’. In most cases, the catalog is the landing page of the portal.
To locate Dataset ID
- Click on the catalog card of the desired dataset from the catalog interface of the data portal.
- The visualization interface of the dataset will have an Information tab that stores the metadata for the specific dataset.
- Click on the Information tab to find the Dataset Identifier.
4. An alternate way to locate the Dataset ID is to navigate to the API tab of the dataset.
Source: This field has a drop-down list of 3 options namely Dataset Lookup, Datasets Search, and Records Search. Each of the available sources indicate a different catalog of datasets which you can query to return the desired result set. Upon selecting the source the required fields representing various criteria will be displayed accordingly.
Dataset: Refers to the identifier of the dataset. This parameter is mandatory.
Query: This field requires you to input the full-text query that is to be performed on the result set. The SQL WHERE clause query language is employed to perform complex and precise searches by filtering the datasets. A filter is a text expression performing a simple full-text search that also extends logical operations (NOT, AND, OR…) as well as a set of other functions.
To learn more about the SQL Where clause query syntax visit https://docs.opendatasoft.com/api/explore/v2.html#where-clause
Language: 2-letters language code for linguistic text features that represents the language of the dataset (iso code).
Rows: Number of results to return in a single call. By default, 10 results are returned.
Start: Index of the first result to return (starting at 0). Use in conjunction with “rows” to implement pagination.
Sort: Sorts results by the specified field using the expression (field or -field) . By default, the sort is descending. A minus ( – ) sign may be used to perform an ascending sort.
Facet: Specify the name of the facet to retrieve.
Refine: This field allows you to limit the resultset by refining on a given facet value.
Exclude: Allows you to exclude from the resultset the hits matching a given value of a given facet.
Geofilter Distance: Limit the result set to a geographical area defined by a circle center (WGS84) and radius (in meters): latitude, longitude, distance
Geofilter Polygon: Limit the result set to a geographical area defined by a polygon (points expressed in WGS84): ((lat1, lon1), (lat2, lon2), (lat3, lon3))
Timezone: The timezone used to interpret dates and times in queries and records. By default, datetime records are in UTC timezone.
To know more about the filtering parameters, visit https://help.opendatasoft.com/apis/ods-search-v1/#dataset-search-api & https://data.opendatasoft.com/explore/dataset/commodity-prices%40public/api/
Caching: To know about caching, click here.