Connect to Act CRM Data and Transfer Data in Talend

This article shows how you can easily integrate the CData JDBC driver for Act CRM into your workflow in Talend. This article uses the CData JDBC Driver for Act CRM to transfer Act CRM data in a job flow in Talend.

Connect to Act CRM in Talend as a JDBC Data Source

You can follow the procedure below to establish a JDBC connection to Act CRM:

1. Add a new database connection to Act CRM data: To add a new connection, expand the Metadata node, right-click the Db Connections node, and then click Create Connection.
2. In the resulting wizard, enter a name for the connection.

3. On the next page, select Generic JDBC from the DB Type menu and enter the JDBC URL.

   The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid Act! user credentials. In addition to the authentication values, see the following:

   • Connecting to Act! Premium

     In addition to the authentication values, the URL to Act! is also required; for example https://eup1-iis-04.eu.hosted.act.com/.

     Additionally, you must specify the ActDatabase you will connect to. This is found by going to the About Act! Premium menu of your account, at the top right of the page, in the ? menu. Use the Database Name in the window that appears.

   • Connecting to Act! Premium Cloud

     To connect to your Act! Premium Cloud account, you also need to specify the ActCloudName property. This property is found in the URL address of the Cloud account; for example https://eup1-iis-04.eu.hosted.act.com/ActCloudName/.

   Note that retrieving ActCRM metadata can be expensive. It is advised that you set the CacheMetadata property to store the metadata locally.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.actcrm.jar

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

   A typical JDBC URL is below:

   jdbc:actcrm:URL=https://myActCRMserver.com;User=myUser;Password=myPassword;ActDatabase=MyDB;
4. Enter the path to the cdata.jdbc.actcrm.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
5. Right-click the connection and then click Retrieve Schema.
6. Click Next with the default options to select the tables you want to import.
7. Finish the wizard with the default options.

Output the Activities Table to a Flat File

You can follow the procedure below to transfer the Activities table to a flat file output component:

1. In the Table Schemas node, drag the tables to the workspace.
2. In the dialog that is displayed, select the tJDBCInput component.
3. Next, drag a tFileOutputDelimited component from the Business Intelligence tab of the Palette into the workspace.
4. Right-click the Activities tJDBCInput component and drag a vector to the output file.

Run the project to transfer the data.