Access BigCommerce Data in Mule Applications Using the CData JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for BigCommerce connects BigCommerce 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 BigCommerce data.

This article demonstrates how to use the CData JDBC Driver for BigCommerce inside of a Mule project to create a Web interface for BigCommerce data. The application created allows you to request BigCommerce 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.bigcommerce.jar). 👁 Adding the JAR file (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Set the URL to the connection string for BigCommerce

     BigCommerce authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Big Commerce developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. These three parameters will be set as connection properties to your driver.

     Additionally, in order to connect to your BigCommerce Store, you will need your StoreId. To find your Store Id please follow these steps:

     1. Log in to your BigCommerce account.
     2. From the Home Page, select Advanced Settings > API Accounts.
     3. Click Create API Account.
     4. A text box named API Path will appear on your screen.
     5. Inside you can see a URL of the following structure: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{Store Id}/v3.
     6. As demonstrated above, your Store Id will be between the 'stores/' and '/v3' path paramters.
     7. Once you have retrieved your Store Id you can either click Cancel or proceed in creating an API Account in case you do not have one already.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     		java -jar cdata.jdbc.bigcommerce.jar
     		

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

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

   SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM Customers WHERE FirstName = 'Bob'

   👁 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 BigCommerce data, navigate to the address you configured for the HTTP Connector (localhost:8081 by default): http://localhost:8081. The BigCommerce 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 BigCommerce 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 BigCommerce and see the CData difference in your Mule Applications today.