Access Asana Data in Mule Applications Using the CData JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for Asana connects Asana data to Mule applications enabling read functionality with familiar SQL queries. The JDBC Driver allows users to easily create Mule applications to backup, transform, report, and analyze Asana data.

This article demonstrates how to use the CData JDBC Driver for Asana inside of a Mule project to create a Web interface for Asana data. The application created allows you to request Asana data using an HTTP request and have the results returned as JSON. The exact same procedure outlined below can be used with any CData JDBC Driver to create a Web interface for the 200+ available data sources.

1. Create a new Mule Project in Anypoint Studio.
2. Add an HTTP Connector to the Message Flow.
3. Configure the address for the HTTP Connector.
4. Add a Database Select Connector to the same flow, after the HTTP Connector.
5. Create a new Connection (or edit an existing one) and configure the properties.
   • Set Connection to "Generic Connection"
   • Select the CData JDBC Driver JAR file in the Required Libraries section (e.g. cdata.jdbc.asana.jar).
   • Set the URL to the connection string for Asana

     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.

   • Set the Driver class name to cdata.jdbc.asana.AsanaDriver.
   • Click Test Connection.
6. Set the SQL Query Text to a SQL query to request Asana data. For example: SELECT Id, WorkspaceId FROM projects WHERE Archived = 'true'
7. Add a Transform Message Component to the flow.
8. Set the Output script to the following to convert the payload to JSON:

   %dw 2.0
   output application/json
   ---
   payload
           

9. To view your Asana data, navigate to the address you configured for the HTTP Connector (localhost:8081 by default): http://localhost:8081. The Asana data is available as JSON in your Web browser and any other tools capable of consuming JSON endpoints.

At this point, you have a simple Web interface for working with Asana data (as JSON data) in custom apps and a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools. Download a free, 30 day trial of the JDBC Driver for Asana and see the CData difference in your Mule Applications today.