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The Active Directory ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Active Directory, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Active Directory objects like you would a database - access Users, Groups, Roles, and Contacts, or define custom tables for any ObjectClass, and then perform SQL queries through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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Viewing Active Directory Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer


How to view Active Directory data in RAD Studio Data Explorer using the CData ODBC Driver for Active Directory.

Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for Active Directory, you gain access to live Active Directory data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to both retrieve and update Active Directory data. This article will walk through connecting to Active Directory using the Data Explorer.

Configure a Connection to Active Directory

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

To establish a connection, set the following properties:

  • Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
  • Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.

  • BaseDN: This will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided.

    Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

Connecting to Active Directory Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying Active Directory data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for Active Directory and a new VCL Forms Application:

  1. Open the Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand FireDAC.
  2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
  3. Click Add New Connection.
  4. Enter a name for the connection.
  5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for Active Directory.
  6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the tables for the connection.

  7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a table (for example: User) onto the form.

  8. Select the UserTable object on the form and set the Active property to true.

  9. Right-click on the object, bind visually, and link everything (*) to a new control (TStringGrid).

  10. Arrange the TStringGrid on the form and run the application to see the User data.