Create Informatica Mappings From/To a JDBC Data Source for Gmail

Informatica provides a powerful, elegant means of transporting and transforming your data. By utilizing the CData JDBC Driver for Gmail, you are gaining access to a driver based on industry-proven standards that integrates seamlessly with Informatica's powerful data transportation and manipulation features. This tutorial shows how to transfer and browse Gmail data in Informatica PowerCenter.

Deploy the Driver

To deploy the driver to the Informatica PowerCenter server, copy the CData JAR and .lic file, located in the lib subfolder in the installation directory, to the following folder: Informatica-installation-directory\services\shared\jars\thirdparty.

To work with Gmail data in the Developer tool, you will need to copy the CData JAR and .lic file, located in the lib subfolder in the installation directory, into the following folders:

• Informatica-installation-directory\client\externaljdbcjars
• Informatica-installation-directory\externaljdbcjars

Create the JDBC Connection

Follow the steps below to connect from Informatica Developer:

1. In the Connection Explorer pane, right-click your domain and click Create a Connection.
2. In the New Database Connection wizard that is displayed, enter a name and Id for the connection and in the Type menu select JDBC.
3. In the JDBC Driver Class Name property, enter:

   cdata.jdbc.gmail.GmailDriver

4. In the Connection String property, enter the JDBC URL, using the connection properties for Gmail.

   There are two ways to authenticate to Gmail. Before selecting one, first ensure that you have enabled IMAP access in your Gmail account settings. See the "Connecting to Gmail" section under "Getting Started" in the installed documentation for a guide.

   The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, can be set to valid Gmail user credentials.

   Alternatively, instead of providing the Password, you can use the OAuth authentication standard. To access Google APIs on behalf on individual users, you can use the embedded credentials or you can register your own OAuth app.

   OAuth also enables you to use a service account to connect on behalf of users in a Google Apps domain. To authenticate with a service account, register an application to obtain the OAuth JWT values.

   In addition to the OAuth values, provide the User. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.gmail.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 connection string is below:

   jdbc:gmail:User=username;Password=password;

Browse Gmail Tables

After you have added the driver JAR to the classpath and created a JDBC connection, you can now access Gmail entities in Informatica. Follow the steps below to connect to Gmail and browse Gmail tables:

1. Connect to your repository.
2. In the Connection Explorer, right-click the connection and click Connect.
3. Clear the Show Default Schema Only option. 👁 The driver models Gmail entities as relational tables. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

You can now browse Gmail tables in the Data Viewer: Right-click the node for the table and then click Open. On the Data Viewer view, click Run.

Create Gmail Data Objects

Follow the steps below to add Gmail tables to your project:

1. Select tables in Gmail, then right-click a table in Gmail, and click Add to Project.
2. In the resulting dialog, select the option to create a data object for each resource.
3. In the Select Location dialog, select your project.

   Create a Mapping

   Follow the steps below to add the Gmail source to a mapping:

   1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Mapping.
   2. Expand the node for the Gmail connection and then drag the data object for the table onto the editor.
   3. In the dialog that appears, select the Read option.
   👁 The source Gmail table in the mapping. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

   Follow the steps below to map Gmail columns to a flat file:

   1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Data Object.
   2. Select Flat File Data Object -> Create as Empty -> Fixed Width.
   3. In the properties for the Gmail object, select the rows you want, right-click, and then click copy. Paste the rows into the flat file properties.
   4. Drag the flat file data object onto the mapping. In the dialog that appears, select the Write option.
   5. Click and drag to connect columns.

   To transfer Gmail data, right-click in the workspace and then click Run Mapping.

   👁 The completed mapping. (Salesforce is shown.)