The CData Sync App provides a straightforward way to continuously pipeline your SAP Business One data to any database, data lake, or data warehouse, making it easily available for Analytics, Reporting, AI, and Machine Learning.
The SAP Business One connector can be used from the CData Sync application to pull data from SAP Business One and move it to any of the supported destinations.
Create a connection to SAP Business One by navigating to the Connections page in the Sync App application and selecting the corresponding icon in the Add Connections panel. If the SAP Business One icon is not available, click the Add More icon to download and install the SAP Business One connector from the CData site.
Required properties are listed under the Settings tab. The Advanced tab lists connection properties that are not typically required.
To authenticate to SAP Business One, you must provide the User and Password connection properties.
This section details a selection of advanced features of the SAP Business One Sync App.
The Sync App allows you to define virtual tables, called user defined views, whose contents are decided by a pre-configured query. These views are useful when you cannot directly control queries being issued to the drivers. See User Defined Views for an overview of creating and configuring custom views.
Use SSL Configuration to adjust how Sync App handles TLS/SSL certificate negotiations. You can choose from various certificate formats; see the SSLServerCert property under "Connection String Options" for more information.
Configure the Sync App for compliance with Firewall and Proxy, including Windows proxies and HTTP proxies. You can also set up tunnel connections.
The Sync App offloads as much of the SELECT statement processing as possible to SAP Business One and then processes the rest of the query in memory (client-side).
See Query Processing for more information.
See Logging for an overview of configuration settings that can be used to refine CData logging. For basic logging, you only need to set two connection properties, but there are numerous features that support more refined logging, where you can select subsets of information to be logged using the LogModules connection property.
By default, the Sync App attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store.
To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats to do so.
To connect through the Windows system proxy, you do not need to set any additional connection properties. To connect to other proxies, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
In addition, to authenticate to an HTTP proxy, set ProxyAuthScheme, ProxyUser, and ProxyPassword, in addition to ProxyServer and ProxyPort.
Set the following properties:
The CData Sync App connects to SAP Business One Service Layer, an OData service, to model entities in relational Tables and Views. The table definitions are dynamically obtained from the SAP Business One Service Layer. Any changes in the metadata, such as added or removed columns or changes in data type, can be loaded by reconnecting.
The Sync App models the writable entity sets and singletons described in the service metadata document as bidirectional Tables.
Some OData entities can only be accessed through Navigation Properties. By default, the Sync App models navigation properties as separate views. You can disable this behavior with NavigationPropertiesAsViews. See Views for more information on querying navigation properties.
The Sync App exposes tables for every entity set and singleton defined on the SAP Business One Service Layer root URL. Entities on these tables may be inserted, updated, or deleted using standard SQL insert, update, or delete statements.
The Sync App supports OData deep inserts, in which you simultaneously create a base entity and link it to related entities, by specifying navigation properties. To specify Navigation Properties for an entity, you create a temporary table for the navigation property and then reference the temporary table in the insert to the base table. Reference the temporary table in the appropriate navigation property column on the base table. Each navigation property column is prefixed with the word "Linked".
Note that you must define the temporary tables and insert to the base entity within the same connection.
For example, consider the Orders table in Northwind odata.org test service. To create a new Order, you specify the Products ordered, Customer, Employee, and Shipper. To do so, you need to specify the following navigation properties.
Insert the related entities into temporary tables that correspond to each navigation property. You can specify an existing entity's primary key or you can insert a new entity.
INSERT INTO Customers#TEMP (CustomerID, CompanyName, ContactName, ContactTitle, Address, City, PostalCode, Country, Phone, Fax)
VALUES ('VINET', 'Vins et alcools Chevalier', 'Paul Henriot', 'Accounting Manager', '59 rue de l''Abbaye', 'Reims', '51100', 'France', '26.47.15.10', '26.47.15.11')
INSERT INTO Order_Details#TEMP (ProductID, UnitPrice, Quantity, Discount) VALUES (72, 34.80, 5, 0)
INSERT INTO Order_Details#TEMP (ProductID, UnitPrice, Quantity, Discount) VALUES (42, 9.80, 10, 0)
INSERT INTO Employees#TEMP (EmployeeID)
VALUES (5)
INSERT INTO Shippers#TEMP (ShipperID) VALUES (3)
The CData Sync App will assume that the Shipper and Employee already exist and will only link to the existing references since only the primary keys were specified for either. When more than just the primary key is defined, such as the examples for Customer and Order_Details, the CData Sync App will attempt to create new entries - triggering the deep insert.
In the INSERT statement for the base entity, reference the temporary tables in the LinkedOrder_Details, LinkedCustomer, LinkedEmployee, and LinkedShipper columns:
INSERT INTO Orders (CustomerID, EmployeeID, ShipVia, ShipName, ShipAddress, ShipCity, ShipPostalCode, ShipCountry, OrderDate, LinkedOrder_Details, LinkedCustomer, LinkedEmployee, LinkedShipper) VALUES ('VINET', 5, 3, 'Paul Henriot', '59 rue de l''Abbaye', 'Reims', '51100', 'France', '07/04/1996', 'Order_Details#TEMP', 'Customers#TEMP', 'Employees#TEMP', 'Shippers#TEMP')
By default, the Sync App models Navigation Properties as separate views. The views are named in the format ParentTable_NavigationProperty. You can disable this behavior with NavigationPropertiesAsViews.
For an example of working with a navigation property as a view, consider BusinessPartners. The BusinessPartners entity set has an Orders navigation property. The CData Sync App will display a view called BusinessPartners_Orders for this service. Retrieving data from BusinessPartners_Orders will display all of the Orders associated with a given BusinessPartner. The BusinessPartners_Orders view has a primary key made up of the primary key of the parent entity and the primary key of the related entity.
Support for navigation properties is currently limited in SAP Business One Service Layer. As of the time of this writing, it is only supported in ODataVersion 3.0. See NavigationPropertiesAsViews to toggle the behavior of this functionality.
The Sync App maps types from the data source to the corresponding data type available in the schema. The table below documents these mappings.
SAP Business One (OData V3) | SAP Business One (OData V4) | CData Schema |
Edm.Binary | Edm.Binary | binary |
Edm.Boolean | Edm.Boolean | bool |
Edm.DateTime | Edm.DateTimeOffset | datetime |
Edm.Double | Edm.Double | double |
Edm.Guid | Edm.Guid | guid |
Edm.Int32 | Edm.Int32 | int |
Edm.String | Edm.String | string |
Edm.TimeOfDay | Edm.TimeOfDay | time |
The connection string properties are the various options that can be used to establish a connection. This section provides a complete list of the options you can configure in the connection string for this provider. Click the links for further details.
For more information on establishing a connection, see Establishing a Connection.
Property | Description |
URL | URL to the SAP Business One Service Layer root. For example, http://localhost:50000/b1s/v1. |
User | The SAP Business One user account used to authenticate. |
Password | The password used to authenticate the user. |
Property | Description |
CompanyDB | Your SAP Business One company database. |
Property | Description |
SSLServerCert | The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL. |
Property | Description |
FirewallType | The protocol used by a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallServer | The name or IP address of a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallPort | The TCP port for a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallUser | The user name to use to authenticate with a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallPassword | A password used to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall. |
Property | Description |
ProxyAutoDetect | This indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings. |
ProxyServer | The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. |
ProxyPort | The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on. |
ProxyAuthScheme | The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyUser | A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyPassword | A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxySSLType | The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyExceptions | A semicolon separated list of destination hostnames or IPs that are exempt from connecting through the ProxyServer . |
Property | Description |
LogModules | Core modules to be included in the log file. |
Property | Description |
Location | A path to the directory that contains the schema files defining tables, views, and stored procedures. |
BrowsableSchemas | This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC. |
Tables | This property restricts the tables reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Tables=TableA,TableB,TableC. |
Views | Restricts the views reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Views=ViewA,ViewB,ViewC. |
Property | Description |
MaxRows | Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time. |
NavigationPropertiesAsViews | A boolean indicating navigation properties should be promoted to full views. |
ODataVersion | The version of OData to use. By default the provider will attempt to autodetect the version. |
Other | These hidden properties are used only in specific use cases. |
PseudoColumns | This property indicates whether or not to include pseudo columns as columns to the table. |
Timeout | The value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation. |
UserDefinedViews | A filepath pointing to the JSON configuration file containing your custom views. |
UseSimpleNames | Boolean determining if simple names should be used for tables and columns. |
This section provides a complete list of the Authentication properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
URL | URL to the SAP Business One Service Layer root. For example, http://localhost:50000/b1s/v1. |
User | The SAP Business One user account used to authenticate. |
Password | The password used to authenticate the user. |
URL to the SAP Business One Service Layer root. For example, http://localhost:50000/b1s/v1.
The URL should appear in the format http://[server]:[port]/b1s/[version].
The SAP Business One user account used to authenticate.
Together with Password, this field is used to authenticate against the SAP Business One server.
The password used to authenticate the user.
The User and Password are together used to authenticate with the server.
This section provides a complete list of the Connection properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
CompanyDB | Your SAP Business One company database. |
Your SAP Business One company database.
The SAP Business One company database you are connecting to. This is required for all connections.
This section provides a complete list of the SSL properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
SSLServerCert | The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL. |
The certificate to be accepted from the server when connecting using TLS/SSL.
If using a TLS/SSL connection, this property can be used to specify the TLS/SSL certificate to be accepted from the server. Any other certificate that is not trusted by the machine is rejected.
This property can take the following forms:
Description | Example |
A full PEM Certificate (example shortened for brevity) | -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- MIIChTCCAe4CAQAwDQYJKoZIhv......Qw== -----END CERTIFICATE----- |
A path to a local file containing the certificate | C:\cert.cer |
The public key (example shortened for brevity) | -----BEGIN RSA PUBLIC KEY----- MIGfMA0GCSq......AQAB -----END RSA PUBLIC KEY----- |
The MD5 Thumbprint (hex values can also be either space or colon separated) | ecadbdda5a1529c58a1e9e09828d70e4 |
The SHA1 Thumbprint (hex values can also be either space or colon separated) | 34a929226ae0819f2ec14b4a3d904f801cbb150d |
If not specified, any certificate trusted by the machine is accepted.
Use '*' to signify to accept all certificates. Note that this is not recommended due to security concerns.
This section provides a complete list of the Firewall properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
FirewallType | The protocol used by a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallServer | The name or IP address of a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallPort | The TCP port for a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallUser | The user name to use to authenticate with a proxy-based firewall. |
FirewallPassword | A password used to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall. |
The protocol used by a proxy-based firewall.
This property specifies the protocol that the Sync App will use to tunnel traffic through the FirewallServer proxy. Note that by default, the Sync App connects to the system proxy; to disable this behavior and connect to one of the following proxy types, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
Type | Default Port | Description |
TUNNEL | 80 | When this is set, the Sync App opens a connection to SAP Business One and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy. |
SOCKS4 | 1080 | When this is set, the Sync App sends data through the SOCKS 4 proxy specified by FirewallServer and FirewallPort and passes the FirewallUser value to the proxy, which determines if the connection request should be granted. |
SOCKS5 | 1080 | When this is set, the Sync App sends data through the SOCKS 5 proxy specified by FirewallServer and FirewallPort. If your proxy requires authentication, set FirewallUser and FirewallPassword to credentials the proxy recognizes. |
To connect to HTTP proxies, use ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate to HTTP proxies, use ProxyAuthScheme, ProxyUser, and ProxyPassword.
The name or IP address of a proxy-based firewall.
This property specifies the IP address, DNS name, or host name of a proxy allowing traversal of a firewall. The protocol is specified by FirewallType: Use FirewallServer with this property to connect through SOCKS or do tunneling. Use ProxyServer to connect to an HTTP proxy.
Note that the Sync App uses the system proxy by default. To use a different proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
The TCP port for a proxy-based firewall.
This specifies the TCP port for a proxy allowing traversal of a firewall. Use FirewallServer to specify the name or IP address. Specify the protocol with FirewallType.
The user name to use to authenticate with a proxy-based firewall.
The FirewallUser and FirewallPassword properties are used to authenticate against the proxy specified in FirewallServer and FirewallPort, following the authentication method specified in FirewallType.
A password used to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall.
This property is passed to the proxy specified by FirewallServer and FirewallPort, following the authentication method specified by FirewallType.
This section provides a complete list of the Proxy properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
ProxyAutoDetect | This indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings. |
ProxyServer | The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. |
ProxyPort | The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on. |
ProxyAuthScheme | The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyUser | A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyPassword | A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxySSLType | The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy. |
ProxyExceptions | A semicolon separated list of destination hostnames or IPs that are exempt from connecting through the ProxyServer . |
This indicates whether to use the system proxy settings or not. This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings.
This takes precedence over other proxy settings, so you'll need to set ProxyAutoDetect to FALSE in order use custom proxy settings.
To connect to an HTTP proxy, see ProxyServer. For other proxies, such as SOCKS or tunneling, see FirewallType.
The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through.
The hostname or IP address of a proxy to route HTTP traffic through. The Sync App can use the HTTP, Windows (NTLM), or Kerberos authentication types to authenticate to an HTTP proxy.
If you need to connect through a SOCKS proxy or tunnel the connection, see FirewallType.
By default, the Sync App uses the system proxy. If you need to use another proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
The TCP port the ProxyServer proxy is running on.
The port the HTTP proxy is running on that you want to redirect HTTP traffic through. Specify the HTTP proxy in ProxyServer. For other proxy types, see FirewallType.
The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
This value specifies the authentication type to use to authenticate to the HTTP proxy specified by ProxyServer and ProxyPort.
Note that the Sync App will use the system proxy settings by default, without further configuration needed; if you want to connect to another proxy, you will need to set ProxyAutoDetect to false, in addition to ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate, set ProxyAuthScheme and set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword, if needed.
The authentication type can be one of the following:
If you need to use another authentication type, such as SOCKS 5 authentication, see FirewallType.
A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
The ProxyUser and ProxyPassword options are used to connect and authenticate against the HTTP proxy specified in ProxyServer.
You can select one of the available authentication types in ProxyAuthScheme. If you are using HTTP authentication, set this to the user name of a user recognized by the HTTP proxy. If you are using Windows or Kerberos authentication, set this property to a user name in one of the following formats:
user@domain domain\user
A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
This property is used to authenticate to an HTTP proxy server that supports NTLM (Windows), Kerberos, or HTTP authentication. To specify the HTTP proxy, you can set ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To specify the authentication type, set ProxyAuthScheme.
If you are using HTTP authentication, additionally set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword to HTTP proxy.
If you are using NTLM authentication, set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword to your Windows password. You may also need these to complete Kerberos authentication.
For SOCKS 5 authentication or tunneling, see FirewallType.
By default, the Sync App uses the system proxy. If you want to connect to another proxy, set ProxyAutoDetect to false.
The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy.
This property determines when to use SSL for the connection to an HTTP proxy specified by ProxyServer. This value can be AUTO, ALWAYS, NEVER, or TUNNEL. The applicable values are the following:
AUTO | Default setting. If the URL is an HTTPS URL, the Sync App will use the TUNNEL option. If the URL is an HTTP URL, the component will use the NEVER option. |
ALWAYS | The connection is always SSL enabled. |
NEVER | The connection is not SSL enabled. |
TUNNEL | The connection is through a tunneling proxy. The proxy server opens a connection to the remote host and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy. |
A semicolon separated list of destination hostnames or IPs that are exempt from connecting through the ProxyServer .
The ProxyServer is used for all addresses, except for addresses defined in this property. Use semicolons to separate entries.
Note that the Sync App uses the system proxy settings by default, without further configuration needed; if you want to explicitly configure proxy exceptions for this connection, you need to set ProxyAutoDetect = false, and configure ProxyServer and ProxyPort. To authenticate, set ProxyAuthScheme and set ProxyUser and ProxyPassword, if needed.
This section provides a complete list of the Logging properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
LogModules | Core modules to be included in the log file. |
Core modules to be included in the log file.
Only the modules specified (separated by ';') will be included in the log file. By default all modules are included.
See the Logging page for an overview.
This section provides a complete list of the Schema properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
Location | A path to the directory that contains the schema files defining tables, views, and stored procedures. |
BrowsableSchemas | This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC. |
Tables | This property restricts the tables reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Tables=TableA,TableB,TableC. |
Views | Restricts the views reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Views=ViewA,ViewB,ViewC. |
A path to the directory that contains the schema files defining tables, views, and stored procedures.
The path to a directory which contains the schema files for the Sync App (.rsd files for tables and views, .rsb files for stored procedures). The folder location can be a relative path from the location of the executable. The Location property is only needed if you want to customize definitions (for example, change a column name, ignore a column, and so on) or extend the data model with new tables, views, or stored procedures.
If left unspecified, the default location is "%APPDATA%\\CData\\SAPBusinessOne Data Provider\\Schema" with %APPDATA% being set to the user's configuration directory:
This property restricts the schemas reported to a subset of the available schemas. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC.
Listing the schemas from databases can be expensive. Providing a list of schemas in the connection string improves the performance.
This property restricts the tables reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Tables=TableA,TableB,TableC.
Listing the tables from some databases can be expensive. Providing a list of tables in the connection string improves the performance of the Sync App.
This property can also be used as an alternative to automatically listing views if you already know which ones you want to work with and there would otherwise be too many to work with.
Specify the tables you want in a comma-separated list. Each table should be a valid SQL identifier with any special characters escaped using square brackets, double-quotes or backticks. For example, Tables=TableA,[TableB/WithSlash],WithCatalog.WithSchema.`TableC With Space`.
Note that when connecting to a data source with multiple schemas or catalogs, you will need to provide the fully qualified name of the table in this property, as in the last example here, to avoid ambiguity between tables that exist in multiple catalogs or schemas.
Restricts the views reported to a subset of the available tables. For example, Views=ViewA,ViewB,ViewC.
Listing the views from some databases can be expensive. Providing a list of views in the connection string improves the performance of the Sync App.
This property can also be used as an alternative to automatically listing views if you already know which ones you want to work with and there would otherwise be too many to work with.
Specify the views you want in a comma-separated list. Each view should be a valid SQL identifier with any special characters escaped using square brackets, double-quotes or backticks. For example, Views=ViewA,[ViewB/WithSlash],WithCatalog.WithSchema.`ViewC With Space`.
Note that when connecting to a data source with multiple schemas or catalogs, you will need to provide the fully qualified name of the table in this property, as in the last example here, to avoid ambiguity between tables that exist in multiple catalogs or schemas.
This section provides a complete list of the Miscellaneous properties you can configure in the connection string for this provider.
Property | Description |
MaxRows | Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time. |
NavigationPropertiesAsViews | A boolean indicating navigation properties should be promoted to full views. |
ODataVersion | The version of OData to use. By default the provider will attempt to autodetect the version. |
Other | These hidden properties are used only in specific use cases. |
PseudoColumns | This property indicates whether or not to include pseudo columns as columns to the table. |
Timeout | The value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation. |
UserDefinedViews | A filepath pointing to the JSON configuration file containing your custom views. |
UseSimpleNames | Boolean determining if simple names should be used for tables and columns. |
Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time.
Limits the number of rows returned rows when no aggregation or group by is used in the query. This helps avoid performance issues at design time.
The version of OData to use. By default the provider will attempt to autodetect the version.
The version of OData to use. By default the Sync App will automatically attempt to determine the version the service is using. If a version cannot be resolved, 3.0 will be used. This can optionally be manually set.
These hidden properties are used only in specific use cases.
The properties listed below are available for specific use cases. Normal driver use cases and functionality should not require these properties.
Specify multiple properties in a semicolon-separated list.
DefaultColumnSize | Sets the default length of string fields when the data source does not provide column length in the metadata. The default value is 2000. |
ConvertDateTimeToGMT | Determines whether to convert date-time values to GMT, instead of the local time of the machine. |
RecordToFile=filename | Records the underlying socket data transfer to the specified file. |
This property indicates whether or not to include pseudo columns as columns to the table.
This setting is particularly helpful in Entity Framework, which does not allow you to set a value for a pseudo column unless it is a table column. The value of this connection setting is of the format "Table1=Column1, Table1=Column2, Table2=Column3". You can use the "*" character to include all tables and all columns; for example, "*=*".
The value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation.
If Timeout = 0, operations do not time out. The operations run until they complete successfully or until they encounter an error condition.
If Timeout expires and the operation is not yet complete, the Sync App throws an exception.
A filepath pointing to the JSON configuration file containing your custom views.
User Defined Views are defined in a JSON-formatted configuration file called UserDefinedViews.json. The Sync App automatically detects the views specified in this file.
You can also have multiple view definitions and control them using the UserDefinedViews connection property. When you use this property, only the specified views are seen by the Sync App.
This User Defined View configuration file is formatted as follows:
For example:
{ "MyView": { "query": "SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE MyColumn = 'value'" }, "MyView2": { "query": "SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE Id IN (1,2,3)" } }Use the UserDefinedViews connection property to specify the location of your JSON configuration file. For example:
"UserDefinedViews", "C:\\Users\\yourusername\\Desktop\\tmp\\UserDefinedViews.json"
Boolean determining if simple names should be used for tables and columns.
SAP Business One tables and columns can use special characters in names that are normally not allowed in standard databases. UseSimpleNames makes the Sync App easier to use with traditional database tools.
Setting UseSimpleNames to true will simplify the names of tables and columns returned. It will enforce a naming scheme such that only alphanumeric characters and the underscore are valid for the displayed table and column names. Any nonalphanumeric characters will be converted to an underscore.