Natively Connect to Aha! Data in PHP

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for Aha! into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build Aha!-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to Aha! data, execute queries, and output the results.

Configure a DSN

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Aha! Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\aha.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Aha! (see below).

Aha! API Profile Settings

The Aha! API uses OAuth-based authentication.

You will first need to register an OAuth app with Aha!. This can be done from your Aha! account under 'Settings' > 'Personal' > 'Developer' > 'OAuth Applications'. Additionally, set the Domain, found in the domain name of your Aha account. For example if your Aha account is acmeinc.aha.io, then the Domain should be 'acmeinc'.

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

• AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientId: Set this to the client_id that is specified in you app settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client_secret that is specified in you app settings.
• CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.
• Domain: Set this in the ProfileSettings to your Aha domain.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to Aha! by calling the or methods. To close connections, use or .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");

Connections opened with are closed when the script ends. Connections opened with the method are still open after the script ends. This enables other scripts to share that connection when they connect with the same credentials. By sharing connections among your scripts, you can save system resources, and queries execute faster.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($conn); //persistent connection must be closed explicitly

Create Prepared Statements

Create prepared statements and parameterized queries with the function.

$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Ideas WHERE AssignedToUserId = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Ideas WHERE AssignedToUserId = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('my_user_id'));
 

Execute nonparameterized queries with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, Name FROM Ideas WHERE AssignedToUserId = 'my_user_id'");
 

Process Results

Access a row in the result set as an array with the function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Aha! data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, Name FROM Ideas WHERE AssignedToUserId = 'my_user_id'");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row["Id"] . "\n";
}

Display the result set in an HTML table with the function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Aha! data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Ideas WHERE AssignedToUserId = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('my_user_id'));
if($success)
 odbc_result_all($query);

More Example Queries

You will find complete information on the driver's supported SQL in the help documentation. The code examples above are Aha!-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.