LINQ to Simplesat Data

This article illustrates using LINQ to access tables within the Simplesat via the CData ADO.NET Data Provider for Simplesat. To achieve this, we will use LINQ to Entity Framework, which facilitates the generation of connections and can be seamlessly employed with any CData ADO.NET Data Providers to access data through LINQ.

See the help documentation for a guide to setting up an EF 6 project to use the provider.

1. In a new project in Visual Studio, right-click on the project and choose to add a new item. Add an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
2. Choose EF Designer from Database and click Next.
3. Add a new Data Connection, and change your data source type to "CData Simplesat Data Source".

4. Enter your data source connection information.

   Using API Key Authentication

   Simplesat uses API Key authentication. To obtain your API key, log in to your Simplesat account and navigate to Workspace Settings > API. Copy the API key value for use in the connection string.

   After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
   • APIKey: Set this to your Simplesat API key obtained from workspace settings.

   Below is a typical connection string:

   Profile=C:\profiles\Simplesat.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';

👁 Required connection properties for the data source. (QuickBooks is shown.)

5. If saving your entity connection to App.Config, set an entity name. In this example we are setting APIEntities as our entity connection in App.Config.
6. Enter a model name and select any tables or views you would like to include in the model.

Using the entity you created, you can now perform select commands. For example:

APIEntities context = new APIEntities();

var surveysQuery = from surveys in context.Surveys
 select surveys;

foreach (var result in surveysQuery) {
 Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} ", result.Id, result.);
}

See "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for example queries of the supported LINQ.