Working with Zuora Data in LINQPad

The CData ADO.NET Provider for Zuora enables you to use standard ADO.NET interfaces like LINQ and the Entity Framework to work with Zuora data. This article will demonstrate the process of establishing a connection from LINQPad and executing LINQ queries.

Create the Data Model

After downloading and installing both the provider and LINQPad, create a new class library project within Visual Studio.

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

1. Right-click your project and click Add -> New Item -> ADO.NET Entity Data Model. In the resulting dialog, select Code First from database. Click New Connection and specify the connection string options in the resulting wizard.

   Zuora uses the OAuth standard to authenticate users. See the online Help documentation for a full OAuth authentication guide.

   Configuring Tenant property

   In order to create a valid connection with the provider you need to choose one of the Tenant values (USProduction by default) which matches your account configuration. The following is a list with the available options:

   • USProduction: Requests sent to https://rest.zuora.com.
   • USAPISandbox: Requests sent to https://rest.apisandbox.zuora.com"
   • USPerformanceTest: Requests sent to https://rest.pt1.zuora.com"
   • EUProduction: Requests sent to https://rest.eu.zuora.com"
   • EUSandbox: Requests sent to https://rest.sandbox.eu.zuora.com"

   Selecting a Zuora Service

   Two Zuora services are available: Data Query and AQuA API. By default ZuoraService is set to AQuADataExport.

   DataQuery

   The Data Query feature enables you to export data from your Zuora tenant by performing asynchronous, read-only SQL queries. We recommend to use this service for quick lightweight SQL queries.

   Limitations
   • The maximum number of input records per table after filters have been applied: 1,000,000
   • The maximum number of output records: 100,000
   • The maximum number of simultaneous queries submitted for execution per tenant: 5
   • The maximum number of queued queries submitted for execution after reaching the limitation of simultaneous queries per tenant: 10
   • The maximum processing time for each query in hours: 1
   • The maximum size of memory allocated to each query in GB: 2
   • The maximum number of indices when using Index Join, in other words, the maximum number of records being returned by the left table based on the unique value used in the WHERE clause when using Index Join: 20,000

   AQuADataExport

   AQuA API export is designed to export all the records for all the objects ( tables ). AQuA query jobs have the following limitations:

   Limitations
   • If a query in an AQuA job is executed longer than 8 hours, this job will be killed automatically.
   • The killed AQuA job can be retried three times before returned as failed.

   Below is a typical connection string:

   OAuthClientID=MyOAuthClientId;OAuthClientSecret=MyOAuthClientSecret;Tenant=USProduction;ZuoraService=DataQuery;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

   👁 The required connection properties in the Entity Data Model Configuration Wizard. (JSON is shown.)
   

2. Select the desired tables and views and click Finish to create the data model.

   👁 The last step of the Entity Data Model Configuration Wizard, where tables are imported into the entity model.
   
3. Build the project. The generated files can be used to create the Zuora connection in LINQPad.

Connect to Zuora Data in LINQPad

After you have obtained the required connection properties and created the data model assembly, follow the steps below to start using the data model in LINQPad.

1. Open LINQPad and click Add Connection.

2. Select the "Use a typed data context from your own assembly" option.

3. Select Entity Framework DbContext.

   👁 The Choose Data Context dialog.
   

4. Click Browse next to the Path to Custom Assembly box and browse to your project folder. Browse to the .dll or .exe under the bin folder.

5. Select the name of the DbContext.
6. If you saved your connection string in App.Config, specify the path to the App.config.

You can now query Zuora data through LINQPad. For examples of the supported LINQ queries, see the "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation.