Connectivity requirements for Enterprise Insights

To successfully connect your data visualization tools and software to your Enterprise Insights (EI) instance, you’ll need to have access to a few specialists in your organization, who can help you provide needed information to our Support team and make some required configuration changes on your network.

This article provides more information on the requirements outlined in the Enterprise Insights Connectivity Questionnaire, which you’ll need to fill out and provide to our Support team to set up your connection to the data warehouse. You can download the questionnaire at the bottom of this page.

On this page:

• Technical points of contact
• Business intelligence (BI) tools
• Authentication methods
• Allowlist IP addresses
• Open port 1433
• Download the questionnaire

Technical points of contact

There are three different points of contact needed from your team to assist with the connection between Enterprise Insights and your data visualization tool. One person may fill multiple roles, depending on your organization.

Jira Align admin

A team member with admin access to Jira Align is required in order to assist with user management which is necessary for setting up Azure Active Directory (AD) authentication.

Note: A user must be added to Jira Align before you can enable the user to authenticate using Azure Active Directory authentication.

Business intelligence tool specialist

A team member with admin access to your preferred data visualization or business intelligence tool is required to assist with connecting EI and your software. This person is familiar with changing settings and building reports in your chosen tool. It’s recommended that this contact also has access to your Jira Align instance.

Network technical point of contact

You’ll need to designate a point of contact on your team to work with our staff to establish and test the connection between your corporate network and EI. Ideally, this person can assist with changes on your network and/or VPN, locating IP addresses on your network, allowlisting, and Azure AD authentication.

To best assist with any troubleshooting needs, your technical point of contact should have access to your Jira Align instance, corporate network settings, and business intelligence tool.

Business intelligence (BI) tools

To query, format, and display your Enterprise Insights data, you’ll need a business intelligence tool, that supports a connection to a Microsoft SQL Server data source, via standard ODBC SQL over the public internet using TCP port 1433. These tools are also known as visualization studios, charting and reporting software, and database management software. Popular products used with EI include:

• Tableau
• PowerBI
• SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
• Azure Data Studio
• DBeaver

Authentication methods

The Enterprise Insights instance requires authentication from your network before it will respond with data. EI supports two options for authentication: Azure Active Directory (AD) or SQL authentication. Azure AD is the recommended method, as it is more secure in that you can enforce single sign-on (SSO) and two-factor authentication options from your side. With SQL authentication, we provide you with a username and temporary password.

Azure AD authentication

To provide your users with access to the EI instance using Azure AD authentication, your Azure AD site must be configured to allow guest authentication tenant access. For more information, review Microsoft’s article on allowing guest access.

Any user that wants to access EI using Azure AD authentication must be associated with a user in your Jira Align instance.

SQL authentication

Our team will create one or more SQL logins, which consist of a username and temporary password, for authentication to your EI instance. Your technical points of contact will need to use these credentials to connect to EI. During your first connectivity test to your EI instance, we recommend changing temporary passwords with an MS SQL code editor like Azure Data Studio or SQL Server Management Studio.

Allowlist IP addresses

Each Enterprise Insights data mart has a firewall that blocks all incoming connections to protect your data. To successfully connect to your EI instance, we will need to add specific IP addresses or a range of IP addresses from your corporate network to the EI firewall’s allowlist. Learn more about IP firewalls provided by Microsoft Azure, which EI is hosted on.

Your provided corporate IP addresses must be public and static, these are also known as Network Address Translation (NAT) IP addresses.

Note that with the increased popularity of remote work, it’s possible to have segregated VPNs or corporate networks that allow some traffic off the network, and some traffic on. This could result in a user attempting to access Enterprise Insights from a home IP address if the traffic is not routed correctly. Ensure your network team is ready to provide details on routing if there are challenges with the initial connection.

Open port 1433

In order to connect to Enterprise Insights, your network administrators will need to allow outbound traffic on port 1433 in your network firewall. EI is hosted on Microsoft Azure, which will be in one of the following regions:

• Central US
• West Europe
• Australia East

Each region has a unique set of gateway IP addresses. See the full list on Microsoft’s Azure Architecture site. We recommend that you have your network team test outbound requests from your corporate network to the nearest Azure region gateway, prior to connecting to your new EI instance. This will ensure that traffic can flow through port 1433 and is not blocked by your network firewall.

Note: The gateway IP addresses listed on Microsoft’s site are used for connecting to your EI instance, while the gateway IP address subnets in the same table are IP ranges reserved for future use, should additional gateways be needed for a region. If you can't open port 1433 to all outbound traffic, we recommend opening port 1433 to both the gateway IP addresses and gateway IP address subnets to ensure continued connectivity.

Download the questionnaire

Select the link below to download the Enterprise Insights Connectivity Questionnaire. For more information on how the questionnaire is used to set up your EI instance, see Get started with Enterprise Insights.