Replicate Multiple Airtable Accounts via the CData Sync CLI

CData Sync for Airtable is a stand-alone application that provides solutions for a variety of replication scenarios such as replicating sandbox and production instances into your database. Both Sync for Windows and Sync for Java include a command-line interface (CLI) that makes it easy to manage multiple Airtable connections. In this article we show how to use the CLI to replicate multiple Airtable accounts.

Configure Airtable Connections

You can save connection and email notification settings in an XML configuration file. To replicate multiple Airtable accounts, use multiple configuration files. Below is an example configuration to replicate Airtable to SQLite:

Windows

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<CDataSync>
 <DatabaseType>SQLite</DatabaseType>
 <DatabaseProvider>System.Data.SQLite</DatabaseProvider>
 <ConnectionString>APIKey=keymz3adb53RqsU;BaseId=appxxN2fe34r3rjdG7;TableNames=Table1,...;ViewNames=Table1.View1,...;</ConnectionString>
 <ReplicateAll>False</ReplicateAll>
 <NotificationUserName></NotificationUserName>
 <DatabaseConnectionString>Data Source=C:\my.db</DatabaseConnectionString>
 <TaskSchedulerStartTime>09:51</TaskSchedulerStartTime>
 <TaskSchedulerInterval>Never</TaskSchedulerInterval>
</CDataSync>

Java

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<CDataSync>
<DatabaseType>SQLite</DatabaseType>
 <DatabaseProvider>org.sqlite.JDBC</DatabaseProvider>
 <ConnectionString>APIKey=keymz3adb53RqsU;BaseId=appxxN2fe34r3rjdG7;TableNames=Table1,...;ViewNames=Table1.View1,...;</ConnectionString>
 <ReplicateAll>False</ReplicateAll>
 <NotificationUserName></NotificationUserName>
 <DatabaseConnectionString>Data Source=C:\my.db</DatabaseConnectionString>
</CDataSync>

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.

Configure Queries for Each Airtable Instance

Sync enables you to control replication with standard SQL. The REPLICATE statement is a high-level command that caches and maintains a table in your database. You can define any SELECT query supported by the Airtable API. The statement below caches and incrementally updates a table of Airtable data:

REPLICATE SampleTable_1;

You can specify a file containing the replication queries you want to use to update a particular database. Separate replication statements with semicolons. The following options are useful if you are replicating multiple Airtable accounts into the same database:

You can use a different table prefix in the REPLICATE SELECT statement:

REPLICATE PROD_SampleTable_1 SELECT * FROM SampleTable_1 

Alternatively, you can use a different schema:

REPLICATE PROD.SampleTable_1 SELECT * FROM SampleTable_1

Run Sync

After you have configured the connection strings and replication queries, you can run Sync with the following command-line options:

Windows

AirtableSync.exe -g MyProductionAirtableConfig.xml -f MyProductionAirtableSync.sql

Java

java -Xbootclasspath/p:c:\sqlitejdbc.jar -jar AirtableSync.jar -g MyProductionAirtableConfig.xml -f MyProductionAirtableSync.sql