VOOZH about

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/odoo-cloud-mendix.rst

⇱ Build Odoo-Connected Apps in Mendix

Build Odoo-Connected Apps in Mendix

👁 Dibyendu Datta
Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist
Use CData Connect AI to create an OData feed for Odoo Data and create custom apps in Mendix.

Mendix is a high-productivity app platform that allows you to build and maintain both mobile and web applications at-scale. When paired with CData Connect AI, Mendix provides instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Odoo data for applications. This article demonstrates how to connect to a CData Connect AI data source from within Mendix.

CData Connect AI provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Odoo, allowing you to import data from live Odoo data in Mendix — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build web and mobile applications from within Mendix, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Odoo, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Odoo data quickly.

About Odoo Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from Odoo has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Access live data from both Odoo API 8.0+ and Odoo.sh Cloud ERP.
  • Extend the native Odoo features with intelligent handling of many-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many data properties. CData's connectivity solutions also intelligently handle complex data properties within Odoo. In addition to columns with simple values like text and dates, there are also columns that contain multiple values on each row. The driver decodes these kinds of values differently, depending upon the type of column the value comes from:
    • Many-to-one columns are references to a single row within another model. Within CData solutions, many-to-one columns are represented as integers, whose value is the ID to which they refer in the other model.
    • Many-to-many columns are references to many rows within another model. Within CData solutions, many-to-many columns are represented as text containing a comma-separated list of integers. Each value in that list is the ID of a row that is being referenced.
    • One-to-many columns are references to many rows within another model - they are similar to many-to-many columns (comma-separated lists of integers), except that each row in the referenced model must belong to only one in the main model.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to call server-side RFCs within Odoo.

Users frequently integrate Odoo with analytics tools such as Power BI and Qlik Sense, and leverage our tools to replicate Odoo data to databases or data warehouses.


Getting Started


Configure Odoo Connectivity for Mendix

To work with Odoo data from Mendix, we need to connect to Odoo from Connect AI, provide user access to the connection, and create a Workspace for the Odoo data.

Connect to Odoo from Connect AI

CData Connect AI uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Odoo" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Odoo.

    To connect, set the Url to a valid Odoo site, User and Password to the connection details of the user you are connecting with, and Database to the Odoo database.

    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Odoo Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
  4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

Configure Odoo Endpoints for Mendix

After connecting to Odoo, create a workspace for your desired table(s).

  1. Navigate to the Workspaces page and click Add to create a new Workspace (or select an existing workspace). 👁 The Workspaces page.
    👁 Adding a new Workspace.
  2. Click Add to add new assets to the Workspace.
  3. Select the Odoo connection (e.g. Odoo1) and click Next. 👁 Selecting an Asset (Salesforce is shown).
  4. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Confirm. 👁 Selecting Tables (Salesforce is shown).
  5. Make note of the OData Service URL for your workspace, e.g. https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}

With the connection, PAT, and Workspace configured, you are ready to connect to Odoo data from Mendix.

Build a Odoo-Connected App

Downloading the OData Metadata File

When creating a connection in Mendix, the connection flow requires a Data Source Contract File. Follow these steps to download the OData metadata file for CData Connect AI using curl, a command line tool:

  1. Open a command-line window for your operating system. On Windows, open the start menu, type cmd, and press the Enter key to open a command prompt. On macOS and Linux, open a Terminal window.
  2. To check if curl is installed on your system, type curl -help and press the enter key. If it is not installed, install it from the curl website.
  3. Issue the following curl command, replacing USER with your CData Connect AI username and PAT with the PAT you generated above: 
    curl -u USER:PAT https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/{workspace_name}/$metadata -o metadata.xml
  4. Locate the metadata.xml file that the curl command created and move it to an accessible location.

Connecting to CData Connect AI in Mendix

Follow these steps to establish a connection from Mendix to CData Connect AI:

  1. Login to Mendix and open the Data Hub page.
    2. 👁 Mendix landing page
  2. In the Register a Data Source section, select OData.
    3. 👁 Registering an OData data source
  3. Upload the metadata.xml file from the steps above and click Next.
    4. 👁 Uploading metadata file
  4. Enter your desired values for Data Source Name and Data Source Version. In the Data Source Relative Path field, enter /api/odata/{workspace_name} and click Next.
    5. 👁 Creating the data source
  5. On the Application information page, click Register a new application.
    6. 👁 Register new app
  6. Enter a name in Application Name and select a technical owner (by default, this is the user who is currently logged in).
    7. 👁 Filling in fields for the app
  7. Click Next. In the Environment Name field, enter a desired name (for example, CData Connect AI). In the Environment Location field, enter https://cloud.cdata.com and select the appropriate Environment Type (e.g. Production), depending on what is needed.
    8. 👁 Creating the environment
  8. Click Done! to create your connection.
    9. 👁 Finalizing the connection

You can now use your connection in Mendix Studio Pro to easily create applications with access to live Odoo data.

Get CData Connect AI

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect AI today!

Ready to get started?

Learn more about CData Connect AI or sign up for free trial access:

Free Trial