You can create and manage connections with the Data Explorer and the FireDAC Connection Editor wizards. See Connection Definitions for more information on creating connections from code and creating persistent, private, or temporary connections.

Connecting to Acumatica

In order to connect to the Acumatica data source, you must specify the following connection properties.

• Url: (Required) The base URL for the Acumatica ERP instance. For example: https://domain.acumatica.com/entity/.
• Schema: (Optional) There are two schemas which contains different data. The default one is REST, which uses the Acumatica REST Contract-Based API, and the OData schema, which uses the Acumatica OData API. The OData schema is used to query Acumatica Generic Inquiries.
• Company: (Partially required) Set this to the name of your company or tenant. It is required if Schema is set to OData.
• EndpointVersion: (Optional) The version of the Web Services endpoint. For example: 17.200.001. This applies only to the REST schema.
• EndpointName: (Optional) The name of the Web Services endpoint. For example: Default. This is applies only to the REST schema.

To find out the EndpointVersion and EndpointName for your Acumatica instance, log into Acumatica in a web browser, and then navigate to the Web Service Endpoints page. If necessary, navigate to this page by editing the web browser URL and replacing ScreenId=00000000 (the homepage) with ScreenId=SM207060. If you are redirected back to the homepage, this means your user does not have the necessary permissions to access web services. Under Endpoints properties get the Endpoint Name and Endpoint Version.

Authenticating to Acumatica

There are two authentication methods available for connecting to Acumatica data source, Basic and OAuth.

User Credentials

Set the AuthScheme to Basic and set the User and Password to your login credentials.

OAuth

OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Acumatica using the browser, so all OAuth flows require a custom OAuth application. Also, for all flows, set AuthScheme to OAuth. The following sections assume that you have done so.

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.

For authentication, the only difference between the two methods is that you must set two additional connection properties when using custom OAuth applications.

After setting the following connection properties, 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: Set this to the client Id in your application settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret in your application settings.
• CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URL in your application settings.

When you connect the component opens the OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. The component then completes the OAuth process:

1. Extracts the access token from the callback URL and authenticates requests.
2. Obtains a new access token when the old one expires.
3. Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation that persist across connections.

Web Applications

When connecting via a Web application, you need to create and register a custom OAuth application with Acumatica. See Creating a Custom OAuth App for more information about custom applications. You can then use the component to acquire and manage the OAuth token values.

Get an OAuth Access Token

Set the following connection properties to obtain the OAuthAccessToken:

• OAuthClientId: Set this to the client Id in your application settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret in your application settings

Then call stored procedures to complete the OAuth exchange:

1. Call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure. Set the CallbackURL input to the callback URL you specified in your application settings. If necessary;, set the Scope parameter to request custom permissions.

   The stored procedure returns the URL to the OAuth endpoint.

2. Open the URL, log in, and authorize the application. You are redirected back to the callback URL.
3. Call the GetOAuthAccessToken stored procedure. Set the AuthMode input to WEB. Set the Verifier input to the "code" parameter in the query string of the callback URL. If necessary, set the Scope parameter to request custom permissions.

Once you have obtained the access and refresh tokens, you can connect to data and refresh the OAuth access token either automatically or manually.

Automatic Refresh of the OAuth Access Token

To have the driver automatically refresh the OAuth access token, set the following on the first data connection:

• InitiateOAuth: Set this to REFRESH.
• OAuthClientId: Set this to the client Id in your application settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret in your application settings.
• OAuthAccessToken: Set this to the access token returned by GetOAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthRefreshToken: Set this to the refresh token returned by GetOAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to the location where the component saves the OAuth token values, which persist across connections.

On subsequent data connections, the values for OAuthAccessToken and OAuthRefreshToken are taken from OAuthSettingsLocation.

Manual Refresh of the OAuth Access Token

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

Use the RefreshOAuthAccessToken stored procedure to manually refresh the OAuthAccessToken after the ExpiresIn parameter value returned by GetOAuthAccessToken has elapsed, then set the following connection properties:

• OAuthClientId: Set this to the client Id in your application settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret in your application settings.

Then call RefreshOAuthAccessToken with OAuthRefreshToken set to the OAuth refresh token returned by GetOAuthAccessToken. After the new tokens have been retrieved, open a new connection by setting the OAuthAccessToken property to the value returned by RefreshOAuthAccessToken.

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

Using the FireDAC Connection Editor

Complete the following steps to use the FireDAC Connection Editor to assign a Acumatica connection to a TFDConnection object:

1. Open a project and drop a TFDPhysCDataAcumaticaDriverLink from the Tool Palette onto the Form Designer.
2. Drop a TFDConnection object onto the Form Designer.
3. Double-click the TFDConnection and select CDataAcumatica in the Driver Id menu.
4. Define the necessary connection properties.
5. To execute ad-hoc SQL statements based on this connection, enter SQL commands on the SQL Script tab.
6. In the Form Designer, select the TFDConnection object and set the Connected property to true.

Using the Data Explorer

Complete the following steps to use the Data Explorer to define persistent connections that can be shared across applications and projects:

1. Click View > Tool Windows > Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand the FireDAC node.
2. Right-click the CData Acumatica Data Source node and click Add New Connection.
3. Enter a name for the connection. The FireDAC Connection Editor opens.

Working with Persistent Connections

The connections you define in the Data Explorer can be assigned to a TFDConnection object by specifying the connection name in the TFDConnection object's ConnectionDefName property.

Browsing Data and Metadata

The Data Explorer also provides options for browsing Acumatica objects at design time:

• Expand the CData Acumatica Data Source node in the Data Explorer to view the defined connections.
• Expand a connection node to find the database objects available for a connection.
• Drill down to a database object to find metadata such as primary keys.
• To display data, double-click a table or view or right-click and click View.