Configure the CData JDBC Driver for SharePoint Excel Services in a Connection Pool in Tomcat

The CData JDBC Drivers support standard JDBC interfaces to integrate with Web applications running on the JVM. This article details how to connect to SharePoint Excel Services data from a connection pool in Tomcat.

Connect to SharePoint Excel Services Data through a Connection Pool in Tomcat

1. Copy the CData JAR and CData .lic file to $CATALINA_HOME/lib. The CData JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
2. Add a definition of the resource to the context. Specify the JDBC URL here.

   The URL, User, and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid credentials for SharePoint Online, SharePoint 2010, or SharePoint 2013. Additionally, the Library property must be set to a valid SharePoint Document Library and the File property must be set to a valid .xlsx file in the indicated Library.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.excelservices.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.)
   

   You can see the JDBC URL specified in the resource definition below.

   <Resource name="jdbc/excelservices" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="cdata.jdbc.excelservices.ExcelServicesDriver" factory="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory" url="jdbc:excelservices:URL=https://myorg.sharepoint.com;[email protected];Password=password;File=Book1.xlsx;" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
   

   To allow a single application to access SharePoint Excel Services data, add the code above to the context.xml in the application's META-INF directory.

   For a shared resource configuration, add the code above to the context.xml located in $CATALINA_BASE/conf. A shared resource configuration provides connectivity to SharePoint Excel Services for all applications.

3. Add a reference to the resource to the web.xml for the application.

    SharePoint Excel Services data JSP
    jdbc/ExcelServices
    javax.sql.DataSource
    Container
   
   

4. Initialize connections from the connection pool:

   Context initContext = new InitialContext();
   Context envContext = (Context)initContext.lookup("java:/comp/env");
   DataSource ds = (DataSource)envContext.lookup("jdbc/ExcelServices");
   Connection conn = ds.getConnection();
    

More Tomcat Integration

The steps above show how to connect to SharePoint Excel Services data in a simple connection pooling scenario. For more use cases and information, see the JNDI Datasource How-To in the Tomcat documentation.