Use the CData JDBC Driver for Adobe Commerce in MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When you pair MicroStrategy with the CData JDBC Driver for Adobe Commerce, you gain database-like access to live Adobe Commerce data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through creating a database instance for Adobe Commerce in MicroStrategy Developer and create a Warehouse Catalog for the Adobe Commerce data.

The CData JDBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Adobe Commerce data in MicroStrategy due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from MicroStrategy to Adobe Commerce, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Adobe Commerce and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze Adobe Commerce data using native MicroStrategy data types.

Connect to Adobe Commerce in MicroStrategy Developer

You can connect to Adobe Commerce in MicroStrategy Developer by adding a database instance based on the CData JDBC Driver for Adobe Commerce.^* Before you begin, you will need to install the JDBC Driver for Adobe Commerce on the machine hosting the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server that your instance of MicroStrategy Developer is connected to.

1. Open MicroStrategy Developer and select a Project Source.
2. Navigate to Administration -> Configuration Managers -> Database Instances and right-click to add a new instance. 👁 Create a new Database Instance
   
3. Name the instance, select Generic DBMS as the database connection type, and create a new database connection. 👁 Create a new database connection.
   
4. In the database connection wizard, name the connection and create a new Database Login name, setting the user and password for Adobe Commerce. 👁 Create a new database login.
   
5. On the Advanced tab for the connection wizard, set the additional connection string parameters as follows.
   • Add the JDBC keyword to the connection string.
   • Set MSTR_JDBC_JAR_FOLDER to the path of the directory containing the JAR file for the JDBC driver. (C:\Program Files\CData JDBC Driver for Adobe Commerce\lib\ on Windows.)
   • Set DRIVER to cdata.jdbc.adobe commerce.Adobe CommerceDriver, the driver class.
   • Set URL to the JDBC URL for the Adobe Commerce driver, which contains the necessary connection properties.

     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".

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Adobe Commerce JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.adobe commerce.jar
     

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
     

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

   Typical additional connection string properties follow:

   JDBC;MSTR_JDBC_JAR_FOLDER=PATH\TO\JAR\;DRIVER=cdata.jdbc.adobe commerce.Adobe CommerceDriver;URL={jdbc:adobe commerce:OAuthClientId=MyConsumerKey;OAuthClientSecret=MyConsumerSecret;CallbackURL=http://127.0.0.1:33333;Url=https://myAdobe Commercehost.com;};
   

   👁 Configuring the connection to Adobe Commerce data using JDBC.
   
6. Ensure that you have not selected an ODBC data source (this will trigger MicroStrategy to use the additional connection string parameters to build the database instance) and click OK.
7. Click OK to close the database instance wizard.
8. In the Project Source, right-click the project and open the Project configuration.
9. Navigate to Database Instances, select the newly created database instance, and click OK. 👁 Adding the new database instance to the project.
   
10. Close MicroStrategy Developer and restart the connected MicroStrategy Intelligence Server to complete the database instance creation.

With the database instance configured, you will now be able to connect to Adobe Commerce data from the Warehouse Catalog and Data Import.

Connect to Adobe Commerce Data from the Warehouse Catalog

Once you have created a database instance based on the JDBC Driver for Adobe Commerce, you can connect to data from the Warehouse Catalog.

1. Select your project and click Schema -> Warehouse Catalog. 👁 Creating the Warehouse Catalog
   
2. In the Read Settings for the Catalog, click Settings and set the queries to retrieve the schema:
   • To retrieve the list of tables, use the following query:

     SELECT 
      * 
     FROM 
      SYS_TABLES
      

   • To retrieve the list of columns for selected tables, use the following query:

     SELECT DISTINCT 
      CatalogName NAME_SPACE, 
      TableName TAB_NAME, 
      ColumnName COL_NAME, 
      DataTypeName DATA_TYPE, 
      Length DATA_LEN, 
      NumericPrecision DATA_PREC, 
      NumericScale DATA_SCALE 
     FROM 
      SYS_TABLECOLUMNS 
     WHERE 
      TableName IN (#TABLE_LIST#) 
     ORDER BY
      1,2,3
      

   👁 Custom metadata queries.
   
3. Select tables to be used in the project. 👁 Selecting tables to be used in the project.
   

Using the CData JDBC Driver for Adobe Commerce in MicroStrategy, you can easily create robust visualizations and reports on Adobe Commerce data. Read our other articles on connecting to Adobe Commerce in MictroStrategy Web and connecting to Adobe Commerce in MicroStrategy Desktop for more information.

Note: Connecting using a JDBC Driver requires a 3- or 4-Tier Architecture.