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Get the Report →Connect to Live Act CRM Data in PostGresSQL Interface through CData Connect Cloud
Create a live connection to Act CRM in CData Connect Cloud and connect to your Act CRM data from PostgreSQL.
There are a vast number of PostgreSQL clients available on the Internet. PostgreSQL is a popular interface for data access. When you pair PostgreSQL with CData Connect Cloud, you gain database-like access to live Act CRM data from PostgreSQL. In this article, we walk through the process of connecting to Act CRM data in Connect Cloud and establishing a connection between Connect Cloud and PostgreSQL using a TDS foreign data wrapper (FDW).
CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server interface for Act CRM, allowing you to query data from Act CRM without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Act CRM, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Act CRM data quickly.
Connect to Act CRM in Connect Cloud
CData Connect Cloud uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.
- Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
- Select "Act CRM" from the Add Connection panel
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Act CRM.
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:
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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.
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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.
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- Click Create & Test
- Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Act CRM Connection page and update the User-based permissions.
Add a Personal Access Token
If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.
- Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
- On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
- Give your PAT a name and click Create.
- The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.
Build the TDS Foreign Data Wrapper
The Foreign Data Wrapper can be installed as an extension to PostgreSQL, without recompiling PostgreSQL. The tds_fdw extension is used as an example (https://github.com/tds-fdw/tds_fdw).
- You can clone and build the git repository via something like the following view source:
sudo apt-get install git git clone https://github.com/tds-fdw/tds_fdw.git cd tds_fdw make USE_PGXS=1 sudo make USE_PGXS=1 install
Note: If you have several PostgreSQL versions and you do not want to build for the default one, first locate where the binary for pg_config is, take note of the full path, and then append PG_CONFIG=after USE_PGXS=1 at the make commands. - After you finish the installation, then start the server:
sudo service postgresql start
- Then go inside the Postgres database
psql -h localhost -U postgres -d postgres
Note: Instead of localhost you can put the IP where your PostgreSQL is hosted.
Connect to Act CRM data as a PostgreSQL Database and query the data!
After you have installed the extension, follow the steps below to start executing queries to Act CRM data:
- Log into your database.
- Load the extension for the database:
CREATE EXTENSION tds_fdw;
- Create a server object for Act CRM data:
CREATE SERVER "ActCRM1" FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER tds_fdw OPTIONS (servername'tds.cdata.com', port '14333', database 'ActCRM1');
- Configure user mapping with your email and Personal Access Token from your Connect Cloud account:
CREATE USER MAPPING for postgres SERVER "ActCRM1" OPTIONS (username '[email protected]', password 'your_personal_access_token' );
- Create the local schema:
CREATE SCHEMA "ActCRM1";
- Create a foreign table in your local database:
#Using a table_name definition: CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "ActCRM1".Activities ( id varchar, Subject varchar) SERVER "ActCRM1" OPTIONS(table_name 'ActCRM.Activities', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all'); #Or using a schema_name and table_name definition: CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "ActCRM1".Activities ( id varchar, Subject varchar) SERVER "ActCRM1" OPTIONS (schema_name 'ActCRM', table_name 'Activities', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all'); #Or using a query definition: CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "ActCRM1".Activities ( id varchar, Subject varchar) SERVER "ActCRM1" OPTIONS (query 'SELECT * FROM ActCRM.Activities', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all'); #Or setting a remote column name: CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "ActCRM1".Activities ( id varchar, col2 varchar OPTIONS (column_name 'Subject')) SERVER "ActCRM1" OPTIONS (schema_name 'ActCRM', table_name 'Activities', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
- You can now execute read/write commands to Act CRM:
SELECT id, Subject FROM "ActCRM1".Activities;
More Information & Free Trial
Now, you have created a simple query from live Act CRM data. For more information on connecting to Act CRM (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Act CRM data in PostgreSQL.