Analyze HCL Domino Data in R via JDBC

Access HCL Domino data with pure R script and standard SQL on any machine where R and Java can be installed. You can use the CData JDBC Driver for HCL Domino and the RJDBC package to work with remote HCL Domino data in R. By using the CData Driver, you are leveraging a driver written for industry-proven standards to access your data in the popular, open-source R language. This article shows how to use the driver to execute SQL queries to HCL Domino and visualize HCL Domino data by calling standard R functions.

Install R

You can match the driver's performance gains from multi-threading and managed code by running the multithreaded Microsoft R Open or by running open R linked with the BLAS/LAPACK libraries. This article uses Microsoft R Open 3.2.3, which is preconfigured to install packages from the Jan. 1, 2016 snapshot of the CRAN repository. This snapshot ensures reproducibility.

Load the RJDBC Package

To use the driver, download the RJDBC package. After installing the RJDBC package, the following line loads the package:

library(RJDBC)

Connect to HCL Domino as a JDBC Data Source

You will need the following information to connect to HCL Domino as a JDBC data source:

• Driver Class: Set this to cdata.jdbc.domino.DominoDriver
• Classpath: Set this to the location of the driver JAR. By default this is the lib subfolder of the installation folder.

The DBI functions, such as dbConnect and dbSendQuery, provide a unified interface for writing data access code in R. Use the following line to initialize a DBI driver that can make JDBC requests to the CData JDBC Driver for HCL Domino:

driver <- JDBC(driverClass = "cdata.jdbc.domino.DominoDriver", classPath = "MyInstallationDir\lib\cdata.jdbc.domino.jar", identifier.quote = "'") 

You can now use DBI functions to connect to HCL Domino and execute SQL queries. Initialize the JDBC connection with the dbConnect function.

Connecting to Domino

To connect to Domino data, set the following properties:

• URL: The host name or IP of the server hosting the Domino database. Include the port of the server hosting the Domino database. For example: http://sampleserver:1234/
• DatabaseScope: The name of a scope in the Domino Web UI. The driver exposes forms and views for the schema governed by the specified scope. In the Domino Admin UI, select the Scopes menu in the sidebar. Set this property to the name of an existing scope.

Authenticating with Domino

Domino supports authenticating via login credentials or an Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) OAuth application:

Login Credentials

To authenticate with login credentials, set the following properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to "OAuthPassword"
• User: The username of the authenticating Domino user
• Password: The password associated with the authenticating Domino user

The driver uses the login credentials to automatically perform an OAuth token exchange.

EntraID (formerly AzureAD)

This authentication method uses Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) as an IdP to obtain a JWT token. You need to create a custom OAuth application in Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) and configure it as an IdP. To do so, follow the instructions in the Help documentation. Then set the following properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to "EntraID (formerly AzureAD)"
• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientId: The Client ID obtained when setting up the custom OAuth application.
• OAuthClientSecret: The Client secret obtained when setting up the custom OAuth application.
• CallbackURL: The redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: https://localhost:33333
• AzureTenant: The Microsoft Online tenant being used to access data. Supply either a value in the form companyname.microsoft.com or the tenant ID.

  The tenant ID is the same as the directory ID shown in the Azure Portal's Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) > Properties page.

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

java -jar cdata.jdbc.domino.jar

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

👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)

Below is a sample dbConnect call, including a typical JDBC connection string:

conn <- dbConnect(driver,"jdbc:domino:Server=https://domino.corp.com;AuthScheme=OAuthPassword;User=my_domino_user;Password=my_domino_password;")

Schema Discovery

The driver models HCL Domino APIs as relational tables, views, and stored procedures. Use the following line to retrieve the list of tables:

dbListTables(conn)

Execute SQL Queries

You can use the dbGetQuery function to execute any SQL query supported by the HCL Domino API:

byname <- dbGetQuery(conn,"SELECT Name, Address FROM ByName WHERE City = 'Miami'")

You can view the results in a data viewer window with the following command:

View(byname)

Plot HCL Domino Data

You can now analyze HCL Domino data with any of the data visualization packages available in the CRAN repository. You can create simple bar plots with the built-in bar plot function:

par(las=2,ps=10,mar=c(5,15,4,2))
barplot(byname$Address, main="HCL Domino ByName", names.arg = byname$Name, horiz=TRUE)

👁 A basic bar plot. (Salesforce is shown.)