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CM/EBIA

CM/EBIA is a ConSol CM add-on which allows to create reports directly in the Web Client. CM/EBIA uses a licensed enterprise version the third-party application Metabase, which is integrated via SSO. The created reports are shared with the regular users as dashboard widgets.

The following figure illustrates how CM/EBIA integrates with ConSol CM:

CMEBIA_Architektur_EN.png

Requirements for CM/EBIA​

The following system requirements apply for CM/EBIA:

  • ConSol CM version 6.13.0.0 and up
  • Java 11 or 17
  • CMRF application, see CMRF

Please also see the system requirements.

info

CM/EBIA needs to be licensed separately.

Installing and setting up CM/EBIA​

To use CM/EBIA, you first need to install and set up the Metabase application:

  1. Download the Metabase JAR file from https://downloads.metabase.com/enterprise/latest/metabase.jar.
  2. Start the Metabase application with the following start command: 
    java -jar metabase.jar
    You can set the following variables:
    • -DMB_SESSION_COOKIE_SAMESITE: "None", "Lax" or "Strict". If Metabase is installed in a different domain than ConSol CM, you must use "None".
    • -DMB_JETTY_PORT: The port of the Metabase application. The default port is 3000.
  3. Open the Metabase application. It runs on port 3000 by default. Create the administrator account. You can add the database connection in this step or later.
  4. Go to Settings -> License and Billing, enter the license key provided by ConSol and click Activate.
  5. Go to Settings -> General. The value of the ConSol CM system property cmas-analytics, metabase.url needs to match the value in Site URL, e.g. https://localhost:8080/analytics.
  6. Go to Authentication -> JWT. Set JWT Authentication to Enabled. Enter the URL of the ConSol CM system in JWT Identity Provider URI, e.g. https://localhost:8080/analytics?auth=metabase. Paste the value in String used by the JWT signing key to the ConSol CM system property cmas-analytics, metabase.secret.key.
  7. Go to Embedding. Enter the URL of the ConSol CM system in the field Full-app embedding.
  8. Enter the URL of the Metabase application in the ConSol CM system property cmweb-server-adapter, csrf.domain.white.list.

The next step is to add the databases. These are the databases whose data is used for creating analysis in CM/EBIA. Usually, this is the DWH database with some preconfigured cubes.

warning

It is also possible to connect the ConSol CM production database to CM/EBIA. This is not recommended, so you must check with the ConSol CM support first.

Please proceed as follows to add a database:

  1. Open the CM/EBIA administration.
  2. Go to Databases and click Add database.
  3. Enter the information of your database and click Save.
warning

CM/EBIA uses the enterprise version of the third-party product Metabase. Therefore, the ConSol CM system must be allowed to access the internet to validate the token which gives access to the advanced Metabase features. See https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/enterprise-guide/activating-the-enterprise-edition.html for further details.

Fine-tuning CM/EBIA​

The following settings, which can be made in the CM/EBIA administration, have been proven useful.

Section General:

  • In Friendly Table and Field Names, use the setting Only replace underscores and dashes with spaces to stop CM/EBIA from trying to interpret and beautify column names.

Section Localization:

  • Do not change the settings Report Timezone. Use the database default instead.
  • For German environments: change the date, time, decimal number format and currency.

Section Data Model:

  • Edit the display names of your cubes and most used tables and columns to provide more user-friendly labels. This affects both the labels used for the tables and table columns when creating questions and the labels displayed to the end users.