Provide OData Services of Adobe Commerce Data from a WCF Application

The CData ADO.NET Provider for Adobe Commerce enables you to rapidly develop service-oriented applications using the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) framework, providing Adobe Commerce data data to OData consumers. This article guides you through creating an entity data model for connectivity and a WCF Data Service to expose OData services. You can then consume the feed with various OData clients, such as Power Pivot or applications using the CData ADO.NET Provider for OData.

Create the OData Service

Follow the steps below to create a WCF service application that will provide connectivity to Adobe Commerce data via OData.

1. Open Visual Studio and create a new project. Select the WCF Service Application template.
2. Delete the autogenerated IService.cs and Service1.svc.
3. Install Entity Framework 6:

   Use the Package Manager Console in Visual Studio to install the latest version of Entity Framework. Run the following command to download and install Entity Framework automatically:

   Install-Package EntityFramework

4. Register the Entity Framework provider:
   1. Add the following provider entry in the "providers" section of your App.config or Web.config file. This section should already exist if the Entity Framework installation was successful.

      <configuration>
      ...
      <entityFramework>
       <providers>
       ...
       <provider invariantName="System.Data.CData.Adobe Commerce" type="System.Data.CData.Adobe Commerce.Adobe CommerceProviderServices, System.Data.CData.Adobe Commerce.Entities.EF6" />
       </providers>
      </entityFramework>
      </configuration>

   2. Add a reference to System.Data.CData.Adobe Commerce.Entities.dll, located in lib/4.0 in the installation directory.
   3. Build the project to complete the setup for using EF6.
5. Click Project -> Add New Item -> ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
6. In the Entity Data Model wizard that is displayed, select the 'EF Designer from Database' option.
7. In the resulting Choose Your Connection dialog, click New Connection.

8. In the Connection properties dialog, select the CData Adobe Commerce Data Source and enter the necessary credentials.

   A typical connection string is below:

   OAuthClientId=MyConsumerKey;OAuthClientSecret=MyConsumerSecret;CallbackURL=http://127.0.0.1:33333;Url=https://myAdobe Commercehost.com;

   Adobe Commerce uses the OAuth 1 authentication standard. To connect to the Adobe Commerce REST API, obtain values for the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties by registering an app with your Adobe Commerce system. See the "Getting Started" section in the help documentation for a guide to obtaining the OAuth values and connecting.

   You will also need to provide the URL to your Adobe Commerce system. The URL depends on whether you are using the Adobe Commerce REST API as a customer or administrator.

   • Customer: To use Adobe Commerce as a customer, make sure you have created a customer account in the Adobe Commerce homepage. To do so, click Account -> Register. You can then set the URL connection property to the endpoint of your Adobe Commerce system.

   • Administrator: To access Adobe Commerce as an administrator, set CustomAdminPath instead. This value can be obtained in the Advanced settings in the Admin menu, which can be accessed by selecting System -> Configuration -> Advanced -> Admin -> Admin Base URL.

     If the Use Custom Admin Path setting on this page is set to YES, the value is inside the Custom Admin Path text box; otherwise, set the CustomAdminPath connection property to the default value, which is "admin".

   👁 Required connection properties, specified in the Add Connection dialog. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
9. Select Adobe Commerce tables and views that you want OData clients to access. 👁 Available tables in the Entity Data Model Wizard. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
10. Click Project -> Add New Item -> WCF Data Service.

11. Specify the data source class and configure access to the new WCF Data Service. In the example below, the Access Rule for the entities is set to All. This means that any user will be able to read and modify data.

     
    using System;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.Data.Services;
    using System.Data.Services.Common;
    using System.Linq;
    using System.ServiceModel.Web;
    using System.Web;
    
    namespace Adobe CommerceService{
     public class Adobe CommerceDataService : DataService<Adobe CommerceEntities> {
     public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config) {
     config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("*", EntitySetRights.All);
     config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V3;
     }
     }
    }
    	

12. Run the project. Applications that support OData can now access the Salesforce data and reflect any changes. You can access the feed in your browser. The feed will resemble the following: 👁 The raw OData feed. (Salesforce is shown.)
    

Consume the OData Service from Power Pivot

You can now use the service from any OData client; for example, Excel Power Pivot.

1. Open Excel and click on the Power Pivot Window button.
2. A new pop-up will appear. Select the option From Data Feeds.
3. In the resulting Table Import Wizard, enter the OData URL. For example, http://localhost:12449/Adobe CommerceDataService.svc/. 👁 The OData URL for Adobe Commerce.
   
4. After connecting to the OData service, click the Next button at the bottom of the window.
5. A table listing of the available tables will appear in the next window of the wizard. Select which tables you want to import and click Finish. 👁 Available tables in the Table Import Wizard. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
6. Click Close to import the data in Power Pivot. 👁 The table loaded in Power Pivot. (Salesforce is shown.)