Access SAP ByDesign Data in Mule Applications Using the CData JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for SAP ByDesign connects SAP ByDesign data to Mule applications enabling read functionality with familiar SQL queries. The JDBC Driver allows users to easily create Mule applications to backup, transform, report, and analyze SAP ByDesign data.

This article demonstrates how to use the CData JDBC Driver for SAP ByDesign inside of a Mule project to create a Web interface for SAP ByDesign data. The application created allows you to request SAP ByDesign data using an HTTP request and have the results returned as JSON. The exact same procedure outlined below can be used with any CData JDBC Driver to create a Web interface for the hundreds of available data sources.

1. Create a new Mule Project in Anypoint Studio.
2. Add an HTTP Connector to the Message Flow.
3. Configure the address for the HTTP Connector. 👁 Add and Configure the HTTP Connector
   
4. Add a Database Select Connector to the same flow, after the HTTP Connector.
5. Create a new Connection (or edit an existing one) and configure the properties.
   • Set Connection to "Generic Connection"
   • Select the CData JDBC Driver JAR file in the Required Libraries section (e.g. cdata.jdbc.sapbydesign.jar). 👁 Adding the JAR file (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Set the URL to the connection string for SAP ByDesign

     Set the following connection properties to connect to SAP ByDesign.

     • Url: Set this to the Url of your SAP ByDesign site. For example, https://test.sapbydesign.com
     • User: Set this to the username of your account.
     • Password: Set this to the password of your account.
     • CustomService or AnalyticsService: Only one of these must be specified. If you have a custom service you want to retrieve data from, specify CustomService. If you want to retrieve the reports of a analytical service, specify AnalyticsService.
       If neither is specified, 'cc_home_analytics.svc' will used as a default for the AnalyticsService property. If you are not sure what service to specify, you can always query the Services view to list available services.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the SAP ByDesign JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

     		java -jar cdata.jdbc.sapbydesign.jar
     		

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   • Set the Driver class name to cdata.jdbc.sapbydesign.SAPByDesignDriver. 👁 A configured Database Connection (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Click Test Connection.
6. Set the SQL Query Text to a SQL query to request SAP ByDesign data. For example:

   SELECT ID, ProductCategoryID FROM [Inventory Balance] WHERE ProductCategoryID = '1234567'

   👁 Configure the Select object (Salesforce is Shown)
   
7. Add a Transform Message Component to the flow.
8. Set the Output script to the following to convert the payload to JSON:

   %dw 2.0
   output application/json
   ---
   payload
    

   👁 Add the Transform Message Component to the Flow
   
9. To view your SAP ByDesign data, navigate to the address you configured for the HTTP Connector (localhost:8081 by default): http://localhost:8081. The SAP ByDesign data is available as JSON in your Web browser and any other tools capable of consuming JSON endpoints.

At this point, you have a simple Web interface for working with SAP ByDesign data (as JSON data) in custom apps and a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools. Download a free, 30 day trial of the JDBC Driver for SAP ByDesign and see the CData difference in your Mule Applications today.