Connect to BigCommerce Data in RapidMiner

This article shows how you can easily integrate the CData JDBC driver for BigCommerce into your processes in RapidMiner. This article uses the CData JDBC Driver for BigCommerce to transfer BigCommerce data to a process in RapidMiner.

Connect to BigCommerce in RapidMiner as a JDBC Data Source

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

1. Add a new database driver for BigCommerce: Click Connections -> Manage Database Drivers.
2. In the resulting wizard, click the Add button and enter a name for the connection.
3. Enter the prefix for the JDBC URL: jdbc:bigcommerce:
4. Enter the path to the cdata.jdbc.bigcommerce.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
5. Enter the driver class: cdata.jdbc.bigcommerce.BigCommerceDriver
6. Create a new BigCommerce connection: Click Connections -> Manage Database Connections.
7. Enter a name for your connection.
8. For Database System, select the BigCommerce driver you configured previously.
9. Enter your connection string in the Host box.

   BigCommerce authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Big Commerce developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. These three parameters will be set as connection properties to your driver.

   Additionally, in order to connect to your BigCommerce Store, you will need your StoreId. To find your Store Id please follow these steps:

   1. Log in to your BigCommerce account.
   2. From the Home Page, select Advanced Settings > API Accounts.
   3. Click Create API Account.
   4. A text box named API Path will appear on your screen.
   5. Inside you can see a URL of the following structure: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{Store Id}/v3.
   6. As demonstrated above, your Store Id will be between the 'stores/' and '/v3' path paramters.
   7. Once you have retrieved your Store Id you can either click Cancel or proceed in creating an API Account in case you do not have one already.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.bigcommerce.jar

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

   A typical connection string is below:

   OAuthClientId=YourClientId; OAuthClientSecret=YourClientSecret; StoreId='YourStoreID'; CallbackURL='http://localhost:33333'InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH
10. Enter your username and password if necessary.

You can now use your BigCommerce connection with the various RapidMiner operators in your process. To retrieve BigCommerce data, drag the Retrieve operator from the Operators view. With the Retrieve operator selected, you can then define which table to retrieve in the Parameters view by clicking the folder icon next to the "repository entry." In the resulting Repository Browser, you can expand your connection node to select the desired example set.

Finally, wire the output to the Retrieve process to a result, and run the process to see the BigCommerce data.