Access Airtable Data in Mule Applications Using the CData JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for Airtable connects Airtable data to Mule applications enabling read , write, update, and delete functionality with familiar SQL queries. The JDBC Driver allows users to easily create Mule applications to backup, transform, report, and analyze Airtable data.

This article demonstrates how to use the CData JDBC Driver for Airtable inside of a Mule project to create a Web interface for Airtable data. The application created allows you to request Airtable data using an HTTP request and have the results returned as JSON. The exact same procedure outlined below can be used with any CData JDBC Driver to create a Web interface for the hundreds of available data sources.

1. Create a new Mule Project in Anypoint Studio.
2. Add an HTTP Connector to the Message Flow.
3. Configure the address for the HTTP Connector. 👁 Add and Configure the HTTP Connector
   
4. Add a Database Select Connector to the same flow, after the HTTP Connector.
5. Create a new Connection (or edit an existing one) and configure the properties.
   • Set Connection to "Generic Connection"
   • Select the CData JDBC Driver JAR file in the Required Libraries section (e.g. cdata.jdbc.airtable.jar). 👁 Adding the JAR file (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Set the URL to the connection string for Airtable

     APIKey, BaseId and TableNames parameters are required to connect to Airtable. ViewNames is an optional parameter where views of the tables may be specified.

     • APIKey : API Key of your account. To obtain this value, after logging in go to Account. In API section click Generate API key.
     • BaseId : Id of your base. To obtain this value, it is in the same section as the APIKey. Click on Airtable API, or navigate to https://airtable.com/api and select a base. In the introduction section you can find "The ID of this base is appxxN2ftedc0nEG7."
     • TableNames : A comma separated list of table names for the selected base. These are the same names of tables as found in the UI.
     • ViewNames : A comma separated list of views in the format of (table.view) names. These are the same names of the views as found in the UI.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     		java -jar cdata.jdbc.airtable.jar
     		

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

   • Set the Driver class name to cdata.jdbc.airtable.AirtableDriver. 👁 A configured Database Connection (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Click Test Connection.
6. Set the SQL Query Text to a SQL query to request Airtable data. For example:

   SELECT Id, Column1 FROM SampleTable_1 WHERE Column2 = 'SomeValue'

   👁 Configure the Select object (Salesforce is Shown)
   
7. Add a Transform Message Component to the flow.
8. Set the Output script to the following to convert the payload to JSON:

   %dw 2.0
   output application/json
   ---
   payload
    

   👁 Add the Transform Message Component to the Flow
   
9. To view your Airtable data, navigate to the address you configured for the HTTP Connector (localhost:8081 by default): http://localhost:8081. The Airtable data is available as JSON in your Web browser and any other tools capable of consuming JSON endpoints.

At this point, you have a simple Web interface for working with Airtable data (as JSON data) in custom apps and a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools. Download a free, 30 day trial of the JDBC Driver for Airtable and see the CData difference in your Mule Applications today.