How to Access Live Drift Data in Power Automate Desktop via ODBC

The CData ODBC Driver for Drift enables you to access live Drift data in workflow automation tools like Power Automate. This article shows how to integrate Drift data into a simple workflow, moving Drift data into a CSV file.

Through optimized data processing, CData ODBC Drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Drift data in Microsoft Power Automate. When you issue complex SQL queries from Power Automate to Drift, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Drift and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (e.g. SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connect to Drift as an ODBC Data Source

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.

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.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing workflows.

Integrate Drift Data into Power Automate Workflows

After configuring the DSN for Drift, you are ready to integrate Drift data into your Power Automate workflows. Open Microsoft Power Automate, add a new flow, and name the flow.

👁 A new flow in Power Automate

In the flow editor, you can add the actions to connect to Drift, query Drift using SQL, and write the query results to a CSV document.

Add an Open SQL Connection Action

Add an "Open SQL connection" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

• Connection string: DSN=CData Drift Source

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Open SQL connection' action

Add an Execute SQL Statement Action

Add an "Execute SQL statement" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

• Get connection by: SQL connection variable
• SQL connection: %SQLConnection% (the variable from the "Open SQL connection" action above)
• SQL statement: SELECT * FROM Contacts

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Execute SQL statement' action

Add a Write to CSV File Action

Add a "Write to CSV file" action (Actions -> File) and configure the properties.

• Variable to write to: %QueryResult% (the variable from the "Execute SQL statement" action above)
• File path: set to a file on disk
• Configure Advanced settings as needed.

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Write to CSV file' action

Add a Close SQL Connection Action

Add a "Close SQL connection" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

• SQL Connection: %SQLConnection% (the variable from the "Open SQL connection" action above)

After configuring the action, click Save.

👁 A configured 'Close SQL connection' action

Save & Run the Flow

Once you have configured all the actions for the flow, click the disk icon to save the flow. Click the play icon to run the flow.

👁 A fully configured workflow

Now you have a workflow to move Drift data into a CSV file.

👁 Application data in a CSV file (Salesforce is shown)

With the CData ODBC Driver for Drift, you get live connectivity to Drift data within your Microsoft Power Automate workflows.

Related Power Automate Articles

This article explains how to use the CData ODBC Driver for Drift with Power Automate Desktop. Check out our other articles for more ways to work with Power Automate (Desktop & Online):

• Drift Data in Power Automate Desktop using CData Connect