Configure a Connection Profile

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

Connecting to GitHub

To authenticate to GitHub you must connect using a Personal Access Token or OAuth authentication.

Personal Access Tokens

To connect using a Personal Access Token, set the following:

• AuthScheme: PersonalAccessToken.
• Token: The personal access token generated from the user interface.
• OwnerLogin (optional): The name of the user or organization whose repository and projects you plan to query. If you do not explicitly specify an OwnerLogin, the driver uses the currently authenticated user.

Personal access tokens are intended to access resources on behalf of yourself. To access resources on behalf of an organization, or for long-lived integrations, you should use apps instead.

To ensure full add-in functionality with either a user or organization account, you must generate a classic Personal Access Token.

1. Navigate to Personal access tokens (classic).
2. Select Generate new token (classic).
3. Enter a description in the Note field to identify the token's purpose.
4. Define an expiration date or set it to No expiration (GitHub strongly recommends setting an expiration date to keep your information secure).
5. Select the following scopes: gist, repo, delete_repo, read:repo_hook, project, admin:org, admin:enterprise, user, read:public_key, read:gpg_key.
6. Select Generate token.

Alternatively, you can generate a fine-grained Personal Access Token from Fine-grained personal access tokens. Because these tokens are highly specific, you must explicitly configure the target resource owner, the expiration date, the level of repository access (such as public repositories only, selected repositories, or all repositories), and the required permissions across Repository, Organization, and Account settings according to your needs and principle of least privilege. Note that fine-grained tokens have limitations. Most notably, they cannot access projects owned by a user account, which prevents making use of full add-in functionality. For more details, see Fine-grained personal access tokens limitations.

Desktop Applications

CData provides an embedded OAuth application that simplifies OAuth desktop Authentication. Alternatively, you can create a custom OAuth application. See Creating a Custom OAuth App for information about creating custom applications and reasons for doing so.

Get and Refresh the OAuth Access Token

After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

• OAuthClientId (custom applications only): The client Id assigned when you registered your application.
• OAuthClientSecret (custom applications only): The client secret assigned when you registered your application.
• CallbackURL (custom application only): The redirect URI defined when you registered your application.
• OwnerLogin (optional): The name of the user or organization whose repository and projects you plan to query. If you do not explicitly specify an OwnerLogin, the driver uses the currently authenticated user.

When you connect, the add-in opens GitHub's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. The add-in refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.

Connection Properties

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

Managing Connections

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

See Also

• Querying Data: Use the data selection wizard to pull data into a spreadsheet. You can also configure scheduled data refresh here.
• Using the Excel Add-In: Find other ways to interact with GitHub data, such as using the available CData Excel Functions.