Replicate JotForm Data from PowerShell

The CData ODBC Driver for JotForm enables out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft's built-in support for ODBC. The ODBC driver instantly integrates connectivity to the real JotForm data with PowerShell.

You can use the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC built into PowerShell to quickly automate integration tasks like replicating JotForm data to other databases. This article shows how to replicate JotForm data to SQL Server in 5 lines of code.

You can also write PowerShell code to download JotForm data. See the examples below.

Create an ODBC Data Source for JotForm

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 JotForm Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\JotForm.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for JotForm (see below).

JotForm API Profile Settings

Find your JotForm API Key in order to authenticate. To obtain an API Key, go to 'My Account' > 'API Section' > 'Create a New API Key'. Once you've created your new API Key, you can set it in the ProfileSettings connection property.

Custom Enterprise API Domains

Enterprise customers of JotForm are given custom API domains to connect to, rather than the default 'api.jotform.com' domain. If you are an enterprise JotForm customer, then set Domain to you custom API hostname, such as 'your-domain.com' or 'subdomain.jotform.com', inside the ProfileSettings connection property. Conversely, if you do not have a custom domain and still need to connect to 'api.jotform.com', then leave Domain undefined and set only APIKey.

Connect to JotForm

The code below shows how to use the DSN to initialize the connection to JotForm data in PowerShell:

$conn = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcConnection
$conn.ConnectionString = "DSN=CData API Source x64"

Back Up JotForm Data to SQL Server

After you enable caching, you can use the code below to replicate data to SQL Server.

Set the following connection properties to configure the caching database:

• CacheProvider: The name of the ADO.NET provider. This can be found in the Machine.config for your version of .NET. For example, to configure SQL Server, enter System.Data.SqlClient.

• CacheConnection: The connection string of properties required to connect to the database. Below is an example for SQL Server:

  Server=localhost;Database=RSB;User Id=sqltest;Password=sqltest;

The SQL query in the example can be used to refresh the entire cached table, including its schema. Any already existing cache is deleted.

$conn.Open()
# Create and execute the SQL Query
$SQL = "CACHE DROP EXISTING SELECT * FROM " + $Forms
$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand($sql,$conn)
$count = $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
$conn.Close()

The driver gives you complete control over the caching functionality. See the help documentation for more caching commands and usage examples. See the help documentation for steps to replicate to other databases.

Other Operations

To retrieve JotForm data in PowerShell, call the Fill method of the OdbcDataAdapter method. To execute data manipulation commands, initialize the OdbcCommand object and then call ExecuteNonQuery. Below are some more examples commands to JotForm through the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC:

Retrieve JotForm Data

$sql="SELECT Id, Title from Forms"
 
$da= New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcDataAdapter($sql, $conn)
$dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable
$da.Fill($dt) 
 
$dt.Rows | foreach {
 $dt.Columns | foreach ($col in dt{
 Write-Host $1[$_]
 }
}