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 VeevaVault 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 VeevaVaultCmdlets

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

Import-Module VeevaVaultCmdlets;

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

$conn = Connect-VeevaVault -Url "myURL" -User "myUser" -Password "myPassword"

Connecting to Veeva Vault

In order to connect to your Veeva Vault account, you first need to set the RSBVeevaVault_p_URL connection property to the host you see in the address bar after logging in to your account.

For example: https://myvault.veevavault.com.

Authenticating to Veeva Vault

The cmdlet supports the following authentication methods:

Veeva Vault user credentials
OpenID Connect with the Azure AD Authentication Provider
Okta SSO

User Credentials

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

OpenID with AzureAD

OpenID Connect with Azure AD is a connection type that goes through OAuth. Set the AuthScheme to AzureAD. The following sections assume that you have done so.

Desktop Applications

Follow the steps below to authenticate with the credentials for a custom OAuth app. See Creating a Custom AzureAD App.

Get an OAuth Access Token

You are ready to connect after setting one of the groups of connection properties below:

Authenticating using a Client Secret
- OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client Id in your app settings.
- OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the Client Secret in your app settings.
- CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URL in your app settings. .
- Optionally, depending on the required claims to complete the authentication with the Veeva Vault data source, you may need to set additional scopes via the Scope property. For example, to get the user name and email claims from the UserInfo endpoint, you will need to set the scope value to: 'openid profile email offline_access'.
Authenticating using a Certificate
- OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client Id in your app settings.
- OAuthJWTCert: Set this to the JWT Certificate store.
- OAuthJWTCertType: Set this to the type of the certificate store specified by OAuthJWTCert.
- CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URL in your app settings. .
- Optionally, depending on the required claims to complete the authentication with the Veeva Vault data source, you may need to set additional scopes via the Scope property. For example, to get the user name and email claims from the UserInfo endpoint, you will need to set the scope value to: 'openid profile email offline_access'.

When you connect, the cmdlet opens the OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application.

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 these two options:
- Option 1: Obtain the OAuthVerifier value as described in "Obtain and Exchange a Verifier Code" below.
- Option 2: Install the cmdlet on another machine 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 cmdlet to automatically refresh the access token from 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 click Veeva Vault OAuth endpoint to open the endpoint in your browser.
- If you are using a custom OAuth 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.
Log in and grant permissions to the cmdlet. You are then redirected to the callback URL, which contains the verifier code.
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 the location of the file where the driver saves the OAuth token values that persist across connections.

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 grants 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 create and install 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.

Once 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.

Okta

The cmdlet supports the Okta SAML 2.0 flow. Before you can authenticate via Okta SSO, you must configure your Veeva Vault and Okta instances as described in Veeva Vault's Okta SSO guide.

After following those steps, set the following to connect:

AuthScheme: OKTA
User: the username of the Okta account to use for Okta SSO.
Password: the password of the Okta account to use for Okta SSO.
SSOLoginURL: the "Identify Provider Login URL" associated with your Veeva Vault single sign-on profile. This is the value you copied from "Identity Provider Login URL" in the View Setup Instructions screen from the "Veeva Vault" app integration menu in Okta (step 8 in the linked Veeva Vault Okta SSO guide above).
- This should look like: https://dev-XXXXXXXXX.okta.com/app/veeva_vault/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/sso/saml
SSOExchangeUrl: the "Vault SSO Login URL" associated with your Veeva Vault single sign-on profile. After you have created a single sign-on profile in Veeva Vault (step 12 in the linked Veeva Vault Okta SSO guide above), you can find this in Veeva Vault by navigating to Admin > Settings > SAML Profiles > (click your SAML profile's label) > SAML Single Sign-on Configuration.
- This should look like: https://login.veevavault.com/auth/saml/consumer/_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Retrieving Data

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

$results = Select-VeevaVault -Connection $conn -Table "Documents" -Columns @("Id, Name") -Where "Name='Test'"

The Invoke-VeevaVault 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-VeevaVault -Connection $conn -Table Documents -Where "Name = 'Test'" | Select -Property * -ExcludeProperty Connection,Table,Columns | Export-Csv -Path c:\myDocumentsData.csv -NoTypeInformation

You will notice that we piped the results from Select-VeevaVault 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-VeevaVault -Url "myURL" -User "myUser" -Password "myPassword"
PS C:\> $row = Select-VeevaVault -Connection $conn -Table "Documents" -Columns (Id, Name) -Where "Name = 'Test'" | select -first 1
PS C:\> $row | ConvertTo-Json
{
  "Connection":  {

  },
  "Table":  "Documents",
  "Columns":  [

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

Cmdlets for Veeva Vault