Establishing a Connection

Creating a JDBC Data Source

You can create a JDBC data source to connect from your Java application, based on CData JDBC Driver for SuiteCRM.

Follow these steps:

Add the driver JAR file to the classpath. The JAR file is located in the installation directory's lib subfolder. Ensure that the .lic file is located in the same folder as the JAR file.
Provide the driver class. For example:
```
cdata.jdbc.suitecrm.SuiteCRMDriver
```
Provide the JDBC URL. For example:
```
jdbc:suitecrm:URL=http://mySuiteCRM.com;User=myUser;Password=myPassword;
```
Or, if there is a conflict in your application between drivers using the same URL format, use this form to ensure that you are using the CData driver:
```
jdbc:cdata:suitecrm:URL=http://mySuiteCRM.com;User=myUser;Password=myPassword;
```
Ensure that the URL starts with either jdbc:suitecrm: or jdbc:cdata:suitecrm:. The URL can include any of the connection properties in name-value pairs separated with semicolons.

Connecting to SuiteCRM

Requirements for connecting to SuiteCRM differ, depending on which version of the API your site is running.

SuiteCRM V4.1 API

To connect to SuiteCRM data via the V4.1 API, set these connection properties:

Schema: suitecrmv4.
URL: The URL associated with the SuiteCRM application. For example, http://suite.crm.com.
User: The user associated with the SuiteCRM account.
Password: The password associated with the user of the SuiteCRM account.

Note that retrieving SuiteCRM metadata can be expensive. We recommend that you store the metadata locally, as described in Caching Metadata.

SuiteCRM V8 API

SuiteCRM V8 uses the OAuth2 authentication standard. Before you connect to SuiteCRM V8 API, you must ensure that is it properly configured to provide the OAuth2 private and public keys. For further information, see the SuiteCRM Developer Guide API V8 setup instructions.

Authenticating to SuiteCRM V8 API

The SuiteCRM V8 API uses OAuth2.0 as its authentication mechanism, based on either of two grant types: PASSWORD and CLIENT.

Authentication via OAuth requires the Schema to be set to suitecrmv8, and the creation of a custom OAuth application, as described in Creating a Custom OAuth Application.

Client Credentials Grant

To connect to SuiteCRM V8 API, set these properties:

Schema: suitecrmv8.
AuthScheme: OAuthClient.
OAuthClientId: The client key returned during custom OAuth application creation. (See Creating a Custom OAuth Application.)
OAuthClientSecret: The client secret returned during custom OAuth application creation (See Creating a Custom OAuth Application.)
InitiateOAuth: GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken connection property.
URL: The base URL of your SuiteCRM system. For example, https://suitecrmhost/.

Password Grant

To connect to SuiteCRM V8 API, set these properties:

Schema: suitecrmv8.
AuthScheme: OAuthPassword.
OAuthClientId: The client key returned during custom OAuth application creation. (See Creating a Custom OAuth Application.)
OAuthClientSecret: The client secret returned during custom OAuth application creation. (See Creating a Custom OAuth Application.)
User: The user's username.
Password: The user's password.
InitiateOAuth: GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken connection property.
URL: The base URL of your SuiteCRM system. For example, https://suitecrmhost/.