Using the CData ODBC Driver for Salesforce in PyCharm

The CData ODBC Drivers can be used in any environment that supports loading an ODBC Driver. In this tutorial we will explore using the CData ODBC Driver for Salesforce from within PyCharm. Included are steps for adding the CData ODBC Driver as a data source, as well as basic PyCharm code to query the data source and display results.

To begin, this tutorial will assume that you have already installed the CData ODBC Driver for Salesforce as well as PyCharm.

Getting Started

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Add Pyodbc to the Project

Follow the steps below to add the pyodbc module to your project.

1. Click File -> Settings to open the project settings window.
2. Click Project Interpreter from the Project: YourProjectName menu.
3. To add pyodbc, click the + button and enter pyodbc.
4. Click Install Package to install pyodbc.

Connect to Salesforce

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. See the Getting Started section in the CData driver documentation for a guide to creating a DSN on your OS.

There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Salesforce: OAuth, Login (or basic), and SSO. The Login method requires you to have the username, password, and security token of the user.

OAuth Authentication (default)

The default authentication mechanism (and the one preferred by Salesforce) is OAuth. To use OAuth with CData's embedded OAuth application, leave the connection properties blank. If you have configured your own custom OAuth application with Salesforce (see the Help documentation for more information), set OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL to the properties for you application. Set InitiateOAuth to the desired OAuth flow ("GETANDREFRESH" will have the connector manage the entire OAuth flow).

Login (or Basic) Authentication

If you do not wish do not wish to use OAuth authentication, you can use Login (or basic) authentication. Set AuthScheme to Basic, and set the User, Password, and SecurityToken properties. You can configure your security token in Salesforce.

SSO (single sign-on) Authentication

SSO (single sign-on) can be used by setting the SSOProperties, SSOLoginUrl, and SSOExchangeURL connection properties, which allow you to authenticate to an identity provider. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the Help documentation for more information.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

If your Salesforce org has MFA enforcement enabled, set MFACode to the time-based one-time passcode (TOTP) generated by your authenticator app (such as Salesforce Authenticator or Google Authenticator). MFACode applies to both OAuth and Login authentication flows.

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

[CData Salesforce Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Salesforce
Description = My Description
InitiateOAuth = GETANDREFRESH
MFACode = YourMFACode

Execute SQL to Salesforce

Instantiate a Cursor and use the execute method of the Cursor class to execute any SQL statement.

import pyodbc

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for Salesforce};InitiateOAuth = GETANDREFRESH;MFACode = YourMFACode')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT Industry, AnnualRevenue FROM Account WHERE Name = 'GenePoint'")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
 print(row.Industry, row.AnnualRevenue)

After connecting to Salesforce in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to Salesforce data as if it were a standard database. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this tutorial, please contact us at [email protected].