Establishing a Connection
Enabling SSIS in Visual Studio 2022
If you're using Visual Studio 2022, you will need to install the SQL Server Integration Services Projects extension to use SSIS.
- Navigate to Extensions > Manage Extensions.
- In the Manage Extensions window's search box, search for "SQL Server Integration Services Projects 2022" and select the extension in the list.
- Click Download.
- Close Visual Studio and run the downloaded Microsoft.DataTools.IntegrationServices.exe installer. Proceed through the installer with default settings.
- Open Visual Studio. There should now be an "Integration Services Project" project template available.
Adding the Airtable Connection Manager
Create a new connection manager as follows:
- Create a Visual Studio project with the "Integration Services Project" template.
- In the project, right-click within the Connection Managers window and select New Connection from the menu.
- In the Description column, select CData Airtable Connection Manager and click Add...
- Configure the component as described in the next section.
Alternatively, if you have an existing project and CData Airtable Source or CData Airtable Destination:
- Right-click your CData Airtable source or destination component in your data flow
- Select Edit... to open an editor window.
- Click the New... button next to the Connection manager: dropdown selector to create a connection manager.
- Configure the component as described in the next section.
Connecting to Airtable
The component requests tables and views from Airtable. Specify the following to connect.
- BaseId (optional): You can optionally specify either this property or BaseName to limit the shown tables and views to a particular base. Set this to your base ID.
- To find this value, navigate to the Airtable API Reference and select a base. In the introduction section of the Airtable documentation for the selected base, note the value specified in The ID of this base is <Id>.
- BaseName (optional): You can optionally specify either this property or BaseId to limit the shown tables and views to a particular base. Set this to the name of the schema, which corresponds to the name of the Base in Airtable, that you want to use.
Authenticating to Airtable
You can authenticate to Airtable using either a Personal Access Token or OAuth PKCE.
Personal Access Token
First, generate a personal access token, if you have not done so already:
- Log in to your user account.
- Navigate to the token creation page.
- Click Create new token.
- Under Scopes, click Add a scope to add each of the following:
- data.records:read
- data.records:write
- schema.bases:read
- Under Access, add all the workspaces and bases that you want the token to have access to.
- Click Create token to generate the token. Copy and save the generated token, as it will only be shown once.
- AuthScheme: Set this to PersonalAccessToken.
- OAuthAccessToken: Set this to the value of personal access token that you generated earlier.
OAuth PKCE
Set AuthScheme to OAuthPKCE.
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:
- InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
- OAuthClientId (custom applications only): Set this to the client Id assigned when you registered your app.
- OAuthClientSecret (custom applications only): Set this to the client secret assigned when you registered your app. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
- CallbackURL (custom application only): Set this to the redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: http://localhost:3333
- The component obtains an access token from Airtable and uses it to request data.
- The OAuth values are saved in the location specified in OAuthSettingsLocation, to be persisted across connections.
Headless Machines
To configure the driver, use OAuth with a user account on a headless machine. You need to authenticate on another device that has an internet browser.
- Choose one of two options:
- Option 1: Obtain the OAuthVerifier and PKCEVerifier values as described in "Obtain and Exchange a Verifier Code" below.
- Option 2: Install the component on a machine with an internet browser and transfer the OAuth authentication values after you authenticate through the usual browser-based flow.
- Then configure the component to automatically refresh the access token on the headless machine.
Option 1: Obtain and Exchange Verifier Codes
To obtain a verifier code and PKCE verifier, you must authenticate at the OAuth authorization URL.
Follow the steps below to authenticate from the machine with an internet browser and obtain the OAuthVerifier connection property.
- Choose one of these options:
- If you are using the Embedded OAuth Application, call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure. Open the URL returned by the stored procedure in a browser.
- If you are using a custom OAuth application, set the following properties:
- InitiateOAuth: Set to OFF.
- OAuthClientId: Set to the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
- OAuthClientSecret: Set to the client secret assigned when you registered your application. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
- Log in and grant permissions to the component. You are then redirected to the redirect URI.
There will be a parameter called code appended to the redirect URI. Note the value of this parameter. Later you will set this in the OAuthVerifier connection property.
Next, you need to exchange the OAuth verifier code for OAuth refresh and access tokens.
On the headless machine, set the following connection properties to obtain the OAuth authentication values:
- InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
- OAuthVerifier: Set this to the noted verifier code (the value of the code parameter in the redirect URI).
- PKCEVerifier: Set this to the PKCEVerifier value you noted earlier in Step 1.
- OAuthClientId: (custom applications only) Set this to the client Id in your custom OAuth application settings.
- OAuthClientSecret: (custom applications only) Set this to the client secret in the custom OAuth application settings. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
- OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to persist the encrypted OAuth authentication values to the specified location.
Test the connection to generate the OAuth settings file, then re-set the following properties to connect:
- InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
- OAuthClientId: (custom applications only) Set this to the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
- OAuthClientSecret: (custom applications only) Set this to the client secret assigned when you registered your application. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
- OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to the location containing the encrypted OAuth authentication values. Make sure this location gives read and write permissions to the component to enable the automatic refreshing of the access token.
Option 2: Transfer OAuth Settings
Prior to connecting on a headless machine, you need to install and create a connection with the driver on a device that supports an internet browser. Set the connection properties as described in "Desktop Applications" above.
After completing the instructions in "Desktop Applications", the resulting authentication values are encrypted and written to the location specified by OAuthSettingsLocation. The default filename is OAuthSettings.txt.
Test the connection to generate the OAuth settings file, then copy the OAuth settings file to your headless machine.
On the headless machine, set the following connection properties to connect to data:
- InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
- OAuthClientId: (custom applications only) Set this to the client Id assigned when you registered your application.
- OAuthClientSecret: (custom applications only) Set this to the client secret assigned when you registered your application. Specifying this value is optional if a value was not generated during the OAuth custom application creation process.
- OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to the location of the OAuth settings file you copied from the machine with the browser. Make sure this location gives read and write permissions to the component to enable the automatic refreshing of the access token.