Provide OData Services of Zuora Data from a WCF Application

The CData ADO.NET Provider for Zuora enables you to rapidly develop service-oriented applications using the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) framework, providing Zuora data data to OData consumers. This article guides you through creating an entity data model for connectivity and a WCF Data Service to expose OData services. You can then consume the feed with various OData clients, such as Power Pivot or applications using the CData ADO.NET Provider for OData.

Create the OData Service

Follow the steps below to create a WCF service application that will provide connectivity to Zuora data via OData.

1. Open Visual Studio and create a new project. Select the WCF Service Application template.
2. Delete the autogenerated IService.cs and Service1.svc.
3. Install Entity Framework 6:

   Use the Package Manager Console in Visual Studio to install the latest version of Entity Framework. Run the following command to download and install Entity Framework automatically:

   Install-Package EntityFramework

4. Register the Entity Framework provider:
   1. Add the following provider entry in the "providers" section of your App.config or Web.config file. This section should already exist if the Entity Framework installation was successful.

      <configuration>
      ...
      <entityFramework>
       <providers>
       ...
       <provider invariantName="System.Data.CData.Zuora" type="System.Data.CData.Zuora.ZuoraProviderServices, System.Data.CData.Zuora.Entities.EF6" />
       </providers>
      </entityFramework>
      </configuration>

   2. Add a reference to System.Data.CData.Zuora.Entities.dll, located in lib/4.0 in the installation directory.
   3. Build the project to complete the setup for using EF6.
5. Click Project -> Add New Item -> ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
6. In the Entity Data Model wizard that is displayed, select the 'EF Designer from Database' option.
7. In the resulting Choose Your Connection dialog, click New Connection.

8. In the Connection properties dialog, select the CData Zuora Data Source and enter the necessary credentials.

   A typical connection string is below:

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

   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.
   👁 Required connection properties, specified in the Add Connection dialog. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
9. Select Zuora tables and views that you want OData clients to access. 👁 Available tables in the Entity Data Model Wizard. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
10. Click Project -> Add New Item -> WCF Data Service.

11. Specify the data source class and configure access to the new WCF Data Service. In the example below, the Access Rule for the entities is set to All. This means that any user will be able to read and modify data.

     
    using System;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.Data.Services;
    using System.Data.Services.Common;
    using System.Linq;
    using System.ServiceModel.Web;
    using System.Web;
    
    namespace ZuoraService{
     public class ZuoraDataService : DataService<ZuoraEntities> {
     public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config) {
     config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("*", EntitySetRights.All);
     config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V3;
     }
     }
    }
    	

12. Run the project. Applications that support OData can now access the Salesforce data and reflect any changes. You can access the feed in your browser. The feed will resemble the following: 👁 The raw OData feed. (Salesforce is shown.)
    

Consume the OData Service from Power Pivot

You can now use the service from any OData client; for example, Excel Power Pivot.

1. Open Excel and click on the Power Pivot Window button.
2. A new pop-up will appear. Select the option From Data Feeds.
3. In the resulting Table Import Wizard, enter the OData URL. For example, http://localhost:12449/ZuoraDataService.svc/. 👁 The OData URL for Zuora.
   
4. After connecting to the OData service, click the Next button at the bottom of the window.
5. A table listing of the available tables will appear in the next window of the wizard. Select which tables you want to import and click Finish. 👁 Available tables in the Table Import Wizard. (Salesforce is shown.)
   
6. Click Close to import the data in Power Pivot. 👁 The table loaded in Power Pivot. (Salesforce is shown.)