Integrate Airtable Data in Your Informatica Cloud Instance

Informatica Cloud allows you to perform extract, transform, and load (ETL) tasks in the cloud. With the Cloud Secure Agent and the CData JDBC Driver for Airtable, you get live access to Airtable data, directly within Informatica Cloud. In this article, we will walk through downloading and registering the Cloud Secure Agent, connecting to Airtable through the JDBC Driver and generating a mapping that can be used in any Informatica Cloud process.

Informatica Cloud Secure Agent

To work with the Airtable data through the JDBC Driver, install the Cloud Secure Agent.

1. Navigate to the Administrator page in Informatica Cloud
2. Select the Runtime Environments tab
3. Click "Download Secure Agent"
4. Make note of the Install Token
5. Run the installer on the client machine and register the Cloud Secure Agent with your username and install token

NOTE: It may take some time for all of the Cloud Secure Agent services to get up and running.

Connecting to the Airtable JDBC Driver

With the Cloud Secure Agent installed and running, you are ready to connect to Airtable through the JDBC Driver. Start by clicking the Connections tab and clicking New Connection. Fill in the following properties for the connection:

• Connection Name: Name your connection (i.e.: CData Airtable Connection)
• Type: Select "JDBC_IC (Informatica Cloud)"
• Runtime Environment: Select the runtime environment where you installed the Cloud Secure Agent
• JDBC Connection URL: Set this to the JDBC URL for Airtable. Your URL will look similar to the following:
  
  jdbc:airtable:APIKey=keymz3adb53RqsU;BaseId=appxxN2fe34r3rjdG7;TableNames=Table1,...;ViewNames=Table1.View1,...;

  APIKey, BaseId and TableNames parameters are required to connect to Airtable. ViewNames is an optional parameter where views of the tables may be specified.

  • APIKey : API Key of your account. To obtain this value, after logging in go to Account. In API section click Generate API key.
  • BaseId : Id of your base. To obtain this value, it is in the same section as the APIKey. Click on Airtable API, or navigate to https://airtable.com/api and select a base. In the introduction section you can find "The ID of this base is appxxN2ftedc0nEG7."
  • TableNames : A comma separated list of table names for the selected base. These are the same names of tables as found in the UI.
  • ViewNames : A comma separated list of views in the format of (table.view) names. These are the same names of the views as found in the UI.

  Built-In Connection String Designer

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

  java -jar cdata.jdbc.airtable.jar

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

• JDBC Jar Directory: Set this to the lib folder in the installation location for the JDBC Driver (on Windows, typically C:\Program Files\CData[product_name]\)
• Driver Class: Set this to cdata.jdbc.airtable.AirtableDriver
• Username: Set this to a placeholder value (since Airtable does not require a username)
• Password: Set this to a placeholder value (since Airtable does not require a password)

Create a Mapping for Airtable Data

With the connection to Airtable configured, we can now access Airtable data in any Informatica process. The steps below walk through creating a mapping for Airtable to another data target.

1. Navigate to the Data Integration page
2. Click New.. and select Mapping from the Mappings tab
3. Click the Source Object and in the Source tab, select the Connection and set the Source Type
4. Click "Select" to choose the table to map
5. In the Fields tab, select the fields from the Airtable table to map
6. Click the Target object and configure the Target source, table and fields. In the Field Mapping tab, map the source fields to the target fields.

With the mapping configured, you are ready to start integrating live Airtable data with any of the supported connections in Informatica Cloud. Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Airtable and start working with your live Airtable data in Informatica Cloud today.