Automated Continuous Act CRM Replication to Apache Kafka

Always-on applications rely on automatic failover capabilities and real-time data access. CData Sync integrates live Act CRM data into your Apache Kafka instance, allowing you to consolidate all of your data into a single location for archiving, reporting, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and more.

Configure Apache Kafka as a Replication Destination

Using CData Sync, you can replicate Act CRM data to Kafka. To add a replication destination, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select Apache Kafka as a destination.
3. Enter the necessary connection properties:
   • Bootstrap Servers - Enter the address of the Apache Kafka Bootstrap servers to which you want to connect.
   • Auth Scheme - Select the authentication scheme. Plain is the default setting. For this setting, specify your login credentials:
   • User - Enter the username that you use to authenticate to Apache Kafka.
   • Password - Enter the password that you use to authenticate to Apache Kafka.
   • Type Detection Scheme - Specify the detection-scheme type (None, RowScan, SchemaRegistry, or MessageOnly) that you want to use. The default type is None.
   • Use SSL - Specify whether you want to use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. The default value is False.
4. Click Test Connection to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
5. Click Save Changes.

Configure the Act CRM Connection

You can configure a connection to Act CRM from the Connections tab. To add a connection to your Act CRM account, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select a source (Act CRM).
3. Configure the connection properties.
   
   

   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:

   • 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.

   • 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.

4. Click Connect to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
5. Click Save Changes.

Configure Replication Queries

CData Sync enables you to control replication with a point-and-click interface and with SQL queries. For each replication you wish to configure, navigate to the Jobs tab and click Add Job. Select the Source and Destination for your replication.

Replicate Entire Tables

To replicate an entire table, click Add Tables in the Tables section, choose the table(s) you wish to replicate, and click Add Selected Tables.

Customize Your Replication

You can use the Columns and Query tabs of a task to customize your replication. The Columns tab allows you to specify which columns to replicate, rename the columns at the destination, and even perform operations on the source data before replicating. The Query tab allows you to add filters, grouping, and sorting to the replication.

Schedule Your Replication

In the Schedule section, you can schedule a job to run automatically, configuring the job to run after specified intervals ranging from once every 10 minutes to once every month.

Once you have configured the replication job, click Save Changes. You can configure any number of jobs to manage the replication of your Act CRM data to Kafka.