How to install Caxpy

How to install Caxpy

Caxpy is an extremely lightweight BI tool compared to other mammoth BI solutions and Integrating caxpy is as simple as copying the downloaded archive and placing it in your application server. Here is a step by step guide on installing caxpy and integrating it with your application.

Step1 – Downloading Caxpy archive

Download caxpy archive from the sourceforge repository.

Step 2 – Pre-Deployment Configurations

Caxpy Beta can be connected with a single database at a time and doesn’t come with the necessary jar files for connecting it with DB. You have to manually download the relevant jar files and place them in tomcat lib directory.

After downloading the caxpy.war file, open it using winrar. Navigate to WEB-INF\classes and open caxpy.properties file.

caxpy.properties is where we store all the db connection related information.

You need to change the database properties before deploying it to your server.

#DB PROPERTIES
db.url = jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306
db.database = foodmart
db.driver = com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
db.username = demouser
db.password = demopassword

Your reports are stored in the location mentioned in the property named report.location.

#REPORT PROPERTIES
report.location=/opt/caxpy/reports

After your modifications, save the file and close winrar.

Step 3 – Deploying to your server

You can deploy caxpy in any java based application server but for the sake of simplicity, we will use tomcat for deployment.

Copy caxpy.war and place it inside webapps folder of tomcat and restart your server. caxpy.war will get deployed to tomcat. You can open caxpy in browser by navigating to http://localhost:8080/caxpy/. Change the URL domain and port according to your server settings.

If you can see the above UI in your browser then you have successfully deployed your application.

Step 4 – Creating your first report

1. Use an SQL editor to create queries that you need caxpy to generate report for. Copy the query and paste it in query executor box on the left menu.
2. Hit execute, you would notice the columns in the query have come below your query executor box.
3. Drag the columns that contain text information to the text column dropper at the top.
4. Drag the columns that contain number information into the number column dropper at the top.
5. After dropping your columns, you would see the table getting populated in your UI.
6. Play around with different chart types by selecting in the right panel
7. Save the report by hitting the save button in the left menu.

View the steps in the video below.

[https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/2014-12-28_1450.swf?_subject_uid=55897148&w=AABiDOHeX3gSUuDqSym_mSpuJ943Z-RL9-3tTxsTHl01SA]

Step 5: Embed the created report into your application

After you have created your report and saved it. Click on the share button on the right panel.

Caxpy share button

Copy the code in the popup and paste it in your application code where you want to see the report. The code might look like the one shown below.

<div class='caxpy-report' id="1418644690155" caxpy-report-id="1418644690155" ></div>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://localhost:8080/caxpy/embed.js"></script>

If you are not able to see the report then you might have to manually include raphael and morris js files in your html.

<script src="http://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/raphael/2.1.0/raphael-min.js"></script>
<script src="http://cdn.oesmith.co.uk/morris-0.4.1.min.js"></script>