Import Real-Time SAP Business Warehouse Data via ODBC in ColdFusion to Build Applications

Dibyendu Datta
Lead Technology Evangelist

Use CData ODBC drivers to import and use SAP Business Warehouse data in ColdFusion.

Adobe ColdFusion is a web and mobile application development platform. It uses its own scripting language, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), to create data-driven websites as well as generate remote services, such as REST. When ColdFusion is paired with the CData ODBC Driver for SAP Business Warehouse, you can link your ColdFusion web and mobile applications to operational SAP Business Warehouse data. This allows for your applications to be more robust and complete. This article details how to use the ODBC driver to create a table populated with SAP Business Warehouse data from within a ColdFusion markup file.

To follow along with this tutorial, you need to install the CData ODBC Driver for SAP Business Warehouse and Adobe ColdFusion.

Configuring the Connection

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 process. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

To connect to SAP Business Warehouse, set the URL property to a valid SAP Business Warehouse server base URL. The driver must connect to SAP Business Warehouse instances hosted over HTTP with XMLA access.

The driver supports the following authentication schemes via the AuthScheme property:

None: Anonymous authentication, if available on the server.
Basic: Set User and Password and set AuthScheme to .
Kerberos: See the Using Kerberos section of the help documentation for the required Kerberos properties.

By default, the driver attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store. To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats.

Adding a Data Source and Creating a Table

After creating a DSN, follow the steps below to add a new data source, test our connection to it, create a ColdFusion markup file, and, finally, import SAP Business Warehouse Data and display it in a table in ColdFusion:

From the ColdFusion administrator interface, choose Data & Services. 👁 Selecting Data & Services
Here, click "Add New Data Source". The data source name can be any name, provided it conforms to the ColdFusion variable naming conventions. For our ODBC driver, choose "ODBC Socket", then click the "Add" button. 👁 Adding Data Source Name
From the ODBC DSN Dropdown menu select CData SAP Business Warehouse Sys. Under the Advanced Settings section, leave the Connection String blank. Note that any properties specified in this input field will override the ones specified in the DSN Configuration. 👁 Populating driver properties
Now, test the connection by pressing the check mark to the left of the CDataSAP Business WarehouseODBC data source you just created. When the data source reports an "OK" status, it is ready for use. 👁 Testing the connection

Next, create a new ColdFusion Markup file (.cfm) and place it in the wwwroot directory ("C:\ColdFusion2021\cfusion\wwwroot") for ColdFusion.

The following code queries the data source:

 
 <cfquery name="SAP Business WarehouseQuery" dataSource="CDataSAP Business WarehouseODBC"> 
 SELECT * FROM Sales 
 </cfquery>

And a CFTable can be used to quickly output the table in HTML:

 
 <cftable 
 query = "SAP Business WarehouseQuery" 
 border = "1" 
 colHeaders 
 colSpacing = "2" 
 headerLines = "2" 
 HTMLTable 
 maxRows = "500" 
 startRow = "1"> 

 <cfcol header="<b>CustomerCount</b>" align="Left" width=2 text="CustomerCount"/> 

 <cfcol header="<b>City</b>" align="Left" width=15 text="City"/> 

 ...

 </cftable>

Full code, including the HTML portion is available below:

 
 <html> 
 <head><title>CData Software | SAP Business Warehouse Sales Table Demo </title></head> 
 <body> 
 <cfoutput>#ucase("SAP Business Warehouse Sales Table Demo")#</cfoutput> 
 <cfquery name="SAP Business WarehouseQuery" dataSource="CDataSAP Business WarehouseODBC"> 

 SELECT * FROM Sales 

 </cfquery> 
 <cftable 
 query = "SAP Business WarehouseQuery" 
 border = "1" 
 colHeaders 
 colSpacing = "2" 
 headerLines = "2" 
 HTMLTable 
 maxRows = "500" 
 startRow = "1"> 
 <cfcol header="<b>CustomerCount</b>" align="Left" width=2 text="CustomerCount"/> 

 <cfcol header="<b>City</b>" align="Left" width=15 text="City"/> 

 ...

 </cftable> 
 </body> 

 </html>

Finally, run the code in a browser. It produces a table populated with SAP Business Warehouse data! 👁 Running the code

As a note, the CData ODBC Drivers also support parameterized queries using the cfqueryparam element. For example:

SELECT * FROM Account WHERE name =

Get Started Today

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for SAP Business Warehouse and start building SAP Business Warehouse-connected applications with Adobe ColdFusion. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the SAP Business Warehouse ODBC Driver to get started:

Download Now

Learn more:

👁 SAP Business Warehouse Icon
SAP Business Warehouse ODBC Driver

The SAP Business Warehouse ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from SAP Business Warehouse, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access SAP Business Warehouse data like you would a database - read, write, and update SAP Business Warehouse Tables, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/sapbusinesswarehouse-odbc-coldfusion.rst