Establishing a Connection

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 Adobe Analytics

In order to connect to Adobe Analytics, the GlobalCompanyId and RSID need to be identified. By default, the component attempts to automatically identify your company and report suite. Alternatively, you can identify the company and report suite explicitly:

Global Company Id

GlobalCompanyId is an optional connection property. If left empty, the component tries to automatically detect the Global Company ID. To find the Global Company ID:

Find it in the request URL for the users/me endpoint on the Swagger UI.
Expand the users endpoint and then click the GET users/me button.
Click the Try it out > Execute buttons.
Set the GlobalCompanyId connection property to the Global Company ID shown in the Request URL immediately preceding the users/me endpoint.

Report Suite Id

RSID is an optional connection property. If not set, the driver tries to automatically detect it. To get a full list of your report suites along with their identifiers next to the name, navigate to Admin > Report Suites.

Authenticating to Adobe Analytics

Adobe Analytics uses the OAuth authentication standard. You can authenticate with OAuth integration or Service Account integration.

User Accounts (OAuth)

AuthScheme must be set to OAuth in all user account flows.

NOTE: Adobe authentication via OAuth requires that you update your refresh token every two weeks. We recommend using OAuthJWT instead.

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.
CallbackURL (custom application only): Set this to the redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: https://localhost:3333

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

The component obtains an access token from Adobe Analytics and uses it to request data.
The OAuth values are saved in the location specified in OAuthSettingsLocation, to be persisted across connections.

The component refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.

Web Applications

When connecting via a Web application, you need to register a custom OAuth app with Adobe Analytics. You can then use the component to get and manage the OAuth token values. See Creating a Custom OAuth App for more information.

Get an OAuth Access Token

Set the following connection properties to obtain the OAuthAccessToken:

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

Then call stored procedures to complete the OAuth exchange:

Call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure. Set the CallbackURL input to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings. The stored procedure returns the URL to the OAuth endpoint.
Navigate to the URL that the stored procedure returned in Step 1. Log in, and authorize the web application. After authenticating, the browser redirects you to the redirect URI. There will be a parameter called code appended to the redirect URI. Note the value of this parameter.
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 redirect URI.

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 component 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 app settings.
OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret in your app 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 you want the component to save the OAuth values, which persist across connections.

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 app settings.
OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client secret in your app 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.

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 component on a machine with an Internet browser and transfer the OAuth authentication values after you authenticate through the usual browser-based flow, as described in "Transfer OAuth Settings" below.
Then configure the component 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.

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.
  Then call the GetOAuthAuthorizationURL stored procedure with the appropriate CallbackURL. Open the URL returned by the stored procedure in a browser.
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).
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.

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.
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.
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.

Service Account (JWT OAuth)

Set the AuthScheme to OAuthJWT to authenticate with this method.

Service accounts have silent authentication, which does not require user authentication in the browser.
You need to create an application in this flow. See Creating a Custom OAuth App to create and authorize an app. You can then connect to Adobe Analytics data that the service account has permission to access.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

InitiateOAuth: Set to GETANDREFRESH.
OAuthClientId: Set to the client Id in your app settings.
OAuthClientSecret: Set to the client secret in your app settings.
OAuthJWTCertType: Set to "PUBLIC_KEY_FILE".
OAuthJWTCert: Set to the path to the .key file you generated.
OAuthJWTCertPassword: Set to the password of the .key file.
OAuthJWTIssuer: Set to your Organization ID from the Adobe I/O Console integration in the format org_ident@AdobeOrg. This identifies the organization that has been configured for access to the Adobe I/O API.

When you connect the component completes the OAuth flow for a service account.

Creates and signs the JWT with the claim set required by the component.
Exchanges the JWT for the access token.
Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation to be persisted across connections.
Submits the JWT for a new access token when the token expires.

Using the FireDAC Connection Editor

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

Open a project and drop a TFDPhysCDataAdobeAnalyticsDriverLink from the Tool Palette onto the Form Designer.
Drop a TFDConnection object onto the Form Designer.
Double-click the TFDConnection and select CDataAdobeAnalytics in the Driver Id menu.
Define the necessary connection properties.
To execute ad-hoc SQL statements based on this connection, enter SQL commands on the SQL Script tab.
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:

Click View > Tool Windows > Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand the FireDAC node.
Right-click the CData Adobe Analytics Data Source node and click Add New Connection.
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 Adobe Analytics objects at design time:

Expand the CData Adobe Analytics 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.

FireDAC Components for Adobe Analytics