Viewing BigCommerce Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer

Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for BigCommerce, you gain access to live BigCommerce data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to both retrieve and update BigCommerce data. This article will walk through connecting to BigCommerce using the Data Explorer.

Configure a Connection to BigCommerce

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.

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.

Connecting to BigCommerce Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying BigCommerce data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for BigCommerce and a new VCL Forms Application:

1. Open the Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand FireDAC.
2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
3. Click Add New Connection. 👁 Adding a New Connection. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
4. Enter a name for the connection.
5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for BigCommerce. 👁 Setting the Connection Parameters. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the tables for the connection.

7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a table (for example: Customers) onto the form.

   👁 Placing the Table on the Form. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
8. Select the CustomersTable object on the form and set the Active property to true.

9. Right-click on the object, bind visually, and link everything (*) to a new control (TStringGrid).

   👁 Visually Binding the Table. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

10. Arrange the TStringGrid on the form and run the application to see the Customers data.

    👁 The Table data on a Form. (Salesforce is shown.)
    

Related Articles

Below you can find other articles for using the CData ODBC Driver with RAD Studio, Delphi, and C++ Builder.

• DataBind Controls to BigCommerce Data in C++Builder
• DataBind Controls to BigCommerce Data in Delphi
• Build a Simple VCL Application for BigCommerce Data