Establishing a Connection

Configure a Connection Profile

From the CData ribbon, click Get Data and select From PayPal connection/s to launch the CData Query window. To setup a new connection, you will have to click the New PayPal Connection button. Here you can set the connection settings, test the connection, and save the connection profile.

Connecting to PayPal

The provider surfaces tables from two PayPal APIs. Each API uses a different authentication method.

The SOAP API requires Signature API credentials. To authenticate to the SOAP API, you must set the AuthScheme to Basic, and set the Username, Password, and Signature properties. These API credentials are generated when you enable the SOAP API.
The REST API uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate to the REST API, you must set the AuthScheme to OAuth, and set the OAuthClientId, and OAuthClientSecret properties.

To specify your preferred API, set the Schema property to either REST or SOAP. If no Schema is set, PayPal uses the SOAP schema.

For testing purposes, set UseSandbox to true and use Sandbox credentials.

SOAP API

You can use the SOAP API to retrieve all transactions for the current account. The SOAP API uses the Signature API-credentials type, which has three credential values:

API Username
API Password
API Signature

To generate the API credentials:

Log in to your PayPal business account and select Profile > My Selling Tools.
In the Selling Online section, click Update for the API Access item.
To generate the API signature, click Request API Credentials on the API Access page.
Select Request API Signature and click Agree and Submit to generate the API signature.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

User = the API Username.
Password = the API Password.
Signature = the Signature.
UseSandbox = true if you are using sandbox credentials.

REST API

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

OAuthClientId = the Client Id in your app settings.
OAuthClientSecret = the Client Secret in your app settings.
UseSandbox = true if you are using sandbox credentials.

When you connect, the add-in completes the OAuth process. PayPal supports only OAuth authentication for use with the REST API. To enable this authentication from all OAuth flows, you must set AuthScheme to OAuth, and you must create a custom OAuth application.

The following subsections describe how to authenticate to PayPal from three common authentication flows. For information about how to create a custom OAuth application, see Creating a Custom OAuth Application. For a complete list of connection string properties available in PayPal, see Connection.

Desktop Applications

To authenticate with the credentials for a custom OAuth application, you must get and refresh the OAuth access token. After you do that, you are ready to connect.

Get and refresh the OAuth access token:

InitiateOAuth = GETANDREFRESH. Used to automatically get and refresh the OAuthAccessToken.
OAuthClientId = the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
OAuthClientSecret = the client secret that was assigned when you registered your application.
CallbackURL = the redirect URI that was defined when you registered your application.

When you connect, the add-in opens PayPal's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application.

When the access token expires, the add-in refreshes it automatically.

Automatic refresh of the OAuth access token:

To have the add-in automatically refresh the OAuth access token, do the following:

Before connecting to data for the first time, set the following connection parameters:
- InitiateOAuth = REFRESH.
- OAuthClientId = the client Id in your application settings.
- OAuthClientSecret = the client secret in your application settings.
- OAuthAccessToken = the access token returned by GetOAuthAccessToken.
- OAuthSettingsLocation = the path where you want the add-in to save the OAuth values, which persist across connections.
On subsequent data connections, set the following:
- InitiateOAuth
- OAuthSettingsLocation

Manual refresh of the OAuth access token:

The only value needed to manually refresh the OAuth access token is the OAuth refresh token.

To manually refresh the OAuthAccessToken after the ExpiresIn period (returned by GetOAuthAccessToken) has elapsed, call the RefreshOAuthAccessToken stored procedure.
Set the following connection properties:
- OAuthClientId = the Client Id in your application settings.
- OAuthClientSecret = the Client Secret in your application settings.
Call RefreshOAuthAccessToken with OAuthRefreshToken set to the OAuth refresh token returned by GetOAuthAccessToken.
After the new tokens have been retrieved, set the OAuthAccessToken property to the value returned by RefreshOAuthAccessToken. This opens a new connection.

Store the OAuth refresh token so that you can use it to manually refresh the OAuth access token after it has expired.

When you are finished, configure the driver to automatically refresh the access token on the headless machine.

Connection Properties

The Connection properties describe the various options that can be used to establish a connection.

Managing Connections

After successfully authenticating to PayPal you will be able to customize the data you are importing. To learn more about this, see Managing Connections.

Excel Add-In for PayPal