How to connect to Drift Data from IntelliJ

The CData JDBC Driver for Drift enables you to access Drift as a JDBC data source, providing integration with rapid development tools in IDEs. This article shows how to use the data source configuration wizard to connect to Drift data in IntelliJ.

Create a JBDC Data Source for Drift

Follow the steps below to add the driver JAR and define connection properties required to connect to Drift data.

1. In the Data Sources window, right-click and then click Add Data Source -> DB Data Source.

2. In the Data Source Properties dialog that appears, the following properties are required:

   • JDBC Driver Files: Click the button next to this menu to add the JDBC Driver file cdata.jdbc.api.jar, located in the installation directory.
   • JDBC Driver Class: In this menu, select cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver from the list.

   • Database URL: Enter the connection URL in the JDBC URL property. The URL must start with jdbc:api: and includes connection properties separated with semicolons.

     Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Drift Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Drift.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Drift (see below).

     Drift API Profile Settings

     Drift uses OAuth-based authentication.

     You must first register an application here: https://dev.drift.com. Your app will be assigned a client ID and a client secret. Set these in your connection string via the OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret properties. More information on setting up an OAuth application can be found at https://devdocs.drift.com/docs/.

     After setting the following options in the ProfileSettings connection property, you are ready to connect:

     • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
     • OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client Id that is specified in your app settings.
     • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to Client Secret that is specified in your app settings.
     • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.
     • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.api.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.)
     

     A typical JDBC URL is the following:

     jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Drift.apip;Authscheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackUrl=your_callback_url;

Edit and Save Drift Data

To discover schema information, right-click the data source you just created and click Refresh Tables. To query a table, right-click it and then click Open Tables Editor.