Cmdlets for Act-On

Build 24.0.9060

Establishing a Connection

With the CData Cmdlets users can install a data module, set the connection properties, and start scripting. This section provides examples of using our ActOn Cmdlets with native PowerShell cmdlets, like the CSV import and export cmdlets.

Installing and Connecting

If you have PSGet, installing the cmdlets can be accomplished from the PowerShell Gallery with the following command. You can also obtain a setup from the CData site. 

Install-Module ActOnCmdlets

The following line is then added to your profile, loading the cmdlets on the next session: 

Import-Module ActOnCmdlets;

You can then use the Connect-ActOn cmdlet to create a connection object that can be passed to other cmdlets: 

$conn = Connect-ActOn -OAuthClientId 'MyOAuthClientId' -OAuthClientSecret 'MyOAuthClientSecret' -CallbackURL 'http://localhost:80'

Authenticating to Act-On

Act-On uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to create an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties.

Desktop Applications

CData provides an embedded OAuth application that simplifies OAuth desktop Authentication. Alternatively, you can create a custom application. See Creating a Custom OAuth App for information on 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:

  • OAuthClientId: (custom applications only) Set to the Client ID in your application settings.
  • OAuthClientSecret: (custom applications only) Set to the Client Secret in your application settings.

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

Web Applications

When connecting via a web application, you need to register a custom OAuth application with Act-On. See Creating a Custom OAuth App for more information. You can then use the driver to get and manage the OAuth token values.

First, get an OAuthAccessToken by setting the following connection properties:

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

After 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 cmdlet 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.

Headless Machines

To configure the driver to use OAuth with a user account on a headless machine, you need to authenticate on another device that has an internet browser.

  1. Choose one of two options:

    • Option 1: Obtain the OAuthVerifier value as described in "Obtain and Exchange a Verifier Code" below.
    • Option 2: Install the cmdlet on a machine with a browser and transfer the OAuth authentication values after you authenticate through the usual browser-based flow, as described in "Transfer OAuth Settings" below.

  2. Then configure the cmdlet to automatically refresh the access token on the headless machine.

Option 1: Obtain and Exchange a Verifier Code

To obtain a verifier code, 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.

  1. Choose one of these options:

    • If you are using the Embedded OAuth Application click Act-On OAuth endpoint to open the endpoint in your browser.
    • If you are using a Custom OAuthd Application, create the Authorization URL by setting 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.
      Then call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure with the appropriate CallbackURL. Open the URL returned by the stored procedure in a browser.

  2. Log in and grant permissions to the cmdlet. You are then redirected to the callback URL, which contains the verifier code.
  3. Save the value of the verifier code. 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. Set the following properties:

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 verifier code.
  • 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.
  • OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to persist the encrypted OAuth authentication values to the specified location.

After the OAuth settings file is generated, you need to 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.
  • OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to the location containing the encrypted OAuth authentication values. Make sure this location gives read and write permissions to the cmdlet 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.

After you have successfully tested the connection, 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.
  • OAuthSettingsLocation: Set this to the location of your OAuth settings file. Make sure this location gives read and write permissions to the cmdlet to enable the automatic refreshing of the access token.

Password Grant Authentication

When there is a trust relationship between the user and the application, the user can use the Password grant type to authenticate from either a Desktop application or the web. To enable this authscheme, set AuthScheme to OAuthPassword.

Authentication by password grant is similar to OAuth -- in fact, it requires that you have already set up a custom OAuth application, as described in Creating a Custom OAuth App -- but once it's set up it does not require user interaction.

To connect, set these properties:

  • InitiateOAuth: GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the access token in the connection string.
  • AuthScheme: Set the AuthScheme to OAuthPassword to perform authentication with the password grant type.
  • User: The Username of the user specified in your custom OAuth application.
  • Password: The Password of the user specified in your custom OAuth application.
  • OAuthClientId: The Client Id specified in your custom OAuth application.
  • OAuthClientSecret: The Client Secret specified in your custom OAuth application.

Retrieving Data

The Select-ActOn cmdlet provides a native PowerShell interface for retrieving data: 

$results = Select-ActOn -Connection $conn -Table "Images" -Columns @("Id, Name") -Where "FolderName='New Folder'"
The Invoke-ActOn cmdlet provides an SQL interface. This cmdlet can be used to execute an SQL query via the Query parameter.

Piping Cmdlet Output

The cmdlets return row objects to the pipeline one row at a time. The following line exports results to a CSV file: 

Select-ActOn -Connection $conn -Table Images -Where "FolderName = 'New Folder'" | Select -Property * -ExcludeProperty Connection,Table,Columns | Export-Csv -Path c:\myImagesData.csv -NoTypeInformation

You will notice that we piped the results from Select-ActOn into a Select-Object cmdlet and excluded some properties before piping them into an Export-CSV cmdlet. We do this because the CData Cmdlets append Connection, Table, and Columns information onto each row object in the result set, and we do not necessarily want that information in our CSV file.

However, this makes it easy to pipe the output of one cmdlet to another. The following is an example of converting a result set to JSON: 

 
PS C:\> $conn  = Connect-ActOn -OAuthClientId 'MyOAuthClientId' -OAuthClientSecret 'MyOAuthClientSecret' -CallbackURL 'http://localhost:80'
PS C:\> $row = Select-ActOn -Connection $conn -Table "Images" -Columns (Id, Name) -Where "FolderName = 'New Folder'" | select -first 1
PS C:\> $row | ConvertTo-Json
{
  "Connection":  {

  },
  "Table":  "Images",
  "Columns":  [

  ],
  "Id":  "MyId",
  "Name":  "MyName"
}

Deleting Data

The following line deletes any records that match the criteria: 

Select-ActOn -Connection $conn -Table Images -Where "FolderName = 'New Folder'" | Remove-ActOn

Modifying Data

The cmdlets make data transformation easy as well as data cleansing. The following example loads data from a CSV file into Act-On, checking first whether a record already exists and needs to be updated instead of inserted. 

Import-Csv -Path C:\MyImagesUpdates.csv | %{
  $record = Select-ActOn -Connection $conn -Table Images -Where ("Id = `'"+$_.Id+"`'")
  if($record){
    Update-ActOn -Connection $conn -Table Images -Columns @("Id","Name") -Values @($_.Id, $_.Name) -Where "Id  = `'$_.Id`'"
  }else{
    Add-ActOn -Connection $conn -Table Images -Columns @("Id","Name") -Values @($_.Id, $_.Name)
  }
}

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Build 24.0.9060