The Arria Connect SDK
Note
This documentation is a small subset of the full documentation provided once you have access to Arria Connect.
Introduction
The Arria Connect SDK is a software development kit comprised of APIs and UI libraries. It allows developers to add natural-language narratives to their BI tools by integrating with Arria’s advanced analytics and NLG platform – Arria NLG Studio.
The Arria Connect SDK also includes a reference application to illustrate the Arria user interface, and headless code samples to help developers of all experience levels get started.
Target users
The Arria Connect SDK is aimed at the following developers:
Custom add-in developers who work with BI and analytics tools with public APIs.
OEM developers who work with BI and analytics tools without public APIs.
Automation developers who work with process automation tools.
Narrative options
With Arria Connect, developers can create software that transforms their own data into natural language narratives.
Different narrative options are available for implementation via Connect. Implement them all, or select the one that is most suitable for your requirements:
Option | Description |
|---|---|
NLG Apps | Ready-to-use narratives provided by Arria, for example statistical reporting, trend analysis, pie chart, line chart, and bar chart narratives. |
Arria Answers | Conversational interaction with data using natural language queries for instant insights and drilldown into more detail. |
Custom Narratives | Narratives built in Arria Studio and distributed via URL and API key. |
Use cases
With Arria Connect, developers can integrate with Arria Studio in three ways:
Arria Connect Full SDK (UI Library + API Library): used by developers to create an NLG add-in for a BI/analytics tool. The UI Library provides a ready-to-implement user interface, which gives end users control over the narrative generation; that is, users of the BI tool will be able to select data and narrative types via the add-in created by the developer.
Arria Connect SDK Headless (API Library only): used by developers to generate narratives from data without implementing a user interface. End users will not be able to specify the type of narrative to be generated. Narratives can be output in a variety of helpful formats, such as web content or text files.
Direct API: used by Arria NLG Studio users to share custom narratives from Studio projects via URL and API key. Developers can then submit new datasets via POST request to that URL to update the narrative, and use it, on a webpage or the presentation layer of a software.
Note
To work with direct APIs, you need an Arria NLG Studio account.
There are advantages and disadvantages for each use case:
Using the SDK (with UI or in headless mode) greatly accelerates any development work, but you lose some flexibility in terms of implementation.
Using the direct API gives you complete flexibility for your implementation, but development might be more difficult and more time-consuming.
The narrative production process
To produce a narrative, the software must (1) ingest data, (2) analyze the data and generate a narrative, and (3) output that narrative for the end users.
The Arria Connect SDK libraries provide all the functionality required to cover these steps, as described below:
Data ingestion: developers connect to their own data sources, for example JSON files, CSV files, databases, or BI tools.
Data analysis and narrative generation: developers access Arria NLG Studio's functionality to analyze the data and generate natural language narratives, or give their end users the power to generate the narratives themselves via a user interface.
Output: developers output the narrative in a presentable and useful form, for example text inside a dashboard, a webpage, a text file, an email alert.
The Arria Connect developer guide
This developer guide introduces you to the SDK in the above-mentioned use cases and process steps.
You will get to know the different components of the Arria Connect SDK while you work through the tutorials.
