Query Salesforce Marketing Data as a SQL Server Database in Node.js

You can use CData Connect AI to query Salesforce Marketing data through a SQL Server interface. Follow the procedure below to create a virtual database for Salesforce Marketing in Connect AI and start querying using Node.js.

CData Connect AI provides a pure MySQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for Salesforce Marketing, allowing you to easily query live Salesforce Marketing data in Node.js — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you query data in Node.js, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Salesforce Marketing, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Salesforce Marketing data.

Configure Salesforce Marketing Connectivity for NodeJS

Connectivity to Salesforce Marketing from NodeJS is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Salesforce Marketing data from NodeJS, we start by creating and configuring a Salesforce Marketing connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Salesforce Marketing" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Salesforce Marketing.

   Authenticating to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud APIs

   Set the and to your login credentials, or to the credentials for a sandbox user if you are connecting to a sandbox account.

   Connecting to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud APIs

   By default, the data provider connects to production environments. Set to true to use a Salesforce Marketing Cloud sandbox account.

   The default Instance is s7 of the Web Services API; however, if you use a different instance, you can set .

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Salesforce Marketing 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.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Salesforce Marketing data from Node.js.

Query Salesforce Marketing from Node.js

The following example shows how to define a connection and execute queries to Salesforce Marketing with the SQL Server module. You will need the following information:

• server: tds.cdata.com
• port: 14333
• user: a Connect AI user (e.g. [email protected])
• password: the PAT for the above user
• database: The connection you configured for Salesforce Marketing (SFMarketingCloud1)

Connect to Salesforce Marketing data and start executing queries with the code below:

var sql = require('mssql')
var config = {
	server: 'tds.cdata.com',
	port: 14333, 
	user: '[email protected]', //update me
	password: 'CONNECT_USER_PAT', //update me	
	options: {
		encrypt: true,
		database: 'SFMarketingCloud1'
	}
}

sql.connect(config, err => { 
 if(err){
 throw err ;
 }
 new sql.Request().query('SELECT * FROM Subscriber', (err, result) => {
 console.dir(result)
 })
 
});

sql.on('error', err => {
 console.log("SQL Error: " ,err);
})