ETL Asana in Oracle Data Integrator



This article shows how to transfer Asana data into a data warehouse using Oracle Data Integrator.

Leverage existing skills by using the JDBC standard to connect to Asana: Through drop-in integration into ETL tools like Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), the CData JDBC Driver for Asana connects real-time Asana data to your data warehouse, business intelligence, and Big Data technologies.

JDBC connectivity enables you to work with Asana just as you would any other database in ODI. As with an RDBMS, you can use the driver to connect directly to the Asana APIs in real time instead of working with flat files.

This article walks through a JDBC-based ETL -- Asana to Oracle. After reverse engineering a data model of Asana entities, you will create a mapping and select a data loading strategy -- since the driver supports SQL-92, this last step can easily be accomplished by selecting the built-in SQL to SQL Loading Knowledge Module.

Install the Driver

To install the driver, copy the driver JAR (cdata.jdbc.asana.jar) and .lic file (cdata.jdbc.asana.lic), located in the installation folder, into the ODI appropriate directory:

  • UNIX/Linux without Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib
  • UNIX/Linux with Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib and $ODI_HOME/odi/agent/lib
  • Windows without Agent: %APPDATA%\Roaming\odi\oracledi\userlib
  • Windows with Agent: %APPDATA%\odi\oracledi\userlib and %APPDATA%\odi\agent\lib

Restart ODI to complete the installation.

Reverse Engineer a Model

Reverse engineering the model retrieves metadata about the driver's relational view of Asana data. After reverse engineering, you can query real-time Asana data and create mappings based on Asana tables.

  1. In ODI, connect to your repository and click New -> Model and Topology Objects.
  2. On the Model screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
    • Name: Enter Asana.
    • Technology: Select Generic SQL (for ODI Version 12.2+, select Microsoft SQL Server).
    • Logical Schema: Enter Asana.
    • Context: Select Global.
  3. On the Data Server screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
    • Name: Enter Asana.
    • Driver List: Select Oracle JDBC Driver.
    • Driver: Enter cdata.jdbc.asana.AsanaDriver
    • URL: Enter the JDBC URL containing the connection string.

      You can optionally set the following to refine the data returned from Asana.

      • WorkspaceId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Workspace to only return projects from the specified workspace. To get your workspace id, navigate to https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/workspaces while logged into Asana. This displays a JSON object containing your workspace name and Id.
      • ProjectId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Project to only return data mapped under the specified project. Project IDs can be found in the URL of your project's Overview page. This will be the numbers directly after /0/.

      Connect Using OAuth Authentication

      You must use OAuth to authenticate with Asana. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Asana using the browser. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

      Built-in Connection String Designer

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

      java -jar cdata.jdbc.asana.jar

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

      Below is a typical connection string:

      jdbc:asana:OAuthClientId=YourClientId;OAuthClientSecret=YourClientSecret;CallbackURL='http://localhost:33333';InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH
  4. On the Physical Schema screen, enter the following information:
    • Name: Select from the Drop Down menu.
    • Database (Catalog): Enter CData.
    • Owner (Schema): If you select a Schema for Asana, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter Asana.
    • Database (Work Catalog): Enter CData.
    • Owner (Work Schema): If you select a Schema for Asana, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter Asana.
  5. In the opened model click Reverse Engineer to retrieve the metadata for Asana tables.

Edit and Save Asana Data

After reverse engineering you can now work with Asana data in ODI. To view Asana data, expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator, right-click a table, and click View data.

Create an ETL Project

Follow the steps below to create an ETL from Asana. You will load projects entities into the sample data warehouse included in the ODI Getting Started VM.

  1. Open SQL Developer and connect to your Oracle database. Right-click the node for your database in the Connections pane and click new SQL Worksheet.

    Alternatively you can use SQLPlus. From a command prompt enter the following:

    sqlplus / as sysdba
  2. Enter the following query to create a new target table in the sample data warehouse, which is in the ODI_DEMO schema. The following query defines a few columns that match the projects table in Asana: CREATE TABLE ODI_DEMO.TRG_PROJECTS (WORKSPACEID NUMBER(20,0),Id VARCHAR2(255));
  3. In ODI expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator and double-click the Sales Administration node in the ODI_DEMO folder. The model is opened in the Model Editor.
  4. Click Reverse Engineer. The TRG_PROJECTS table is added to the model.
  5. Right-click the Mappings node in your project and click New Mapping. Enter a name for the mapping and clear the Create Empty Dataset option. The Mapping Editor is displayed.
  6. Drag the TRG_PROJECTS table from the Sales Administration model onto the mapping.
  7. Drag the projects table from the Asana model onto the mapping.
  8. Click the source connector point and drag to the target connector point. The Attribute Matching dialog is displayed. For this example, use the default options. The target expressions are then displayed in the properties for the target columns.
  9. Open the Physical tab of the Mapping Editor and click PROJECTS_AP in TARGET_GROUP.
  10. In the PROJECTS_AP properties, select LKM SQL to SQL (Built-In) on the Loading Knowledge Module tab.

You can then run the mapping to load Asana data into Oracle.

Ready to get started?

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