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Get the Report →ETL Airtable in Oracle Data Integrator
This article shows how to transfer Airtable data into a data warehouse using Oracle Data Integrator.
Leverage existing skills by using the JDBC standard to read and write to Airtable: Through drop-in integration into ETL tools like Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), the CData JDBC Driver for Airtable connects real-time Airtable data to your data warehouse, business intelligence, and Big Data technologies.
JDBC connectivity enables you to work with Airtable just as you would any other database in ODI. As with an RDBMS, you can use the driver to connect directly to the Airtable APIs in real time instead of working with flat files.
This article walks through a JDBC-based ETL -- Airtable to Oracle. After reverse engineering a data model of Airtable entities, you will create a mapping and select a data loading strategy -- since the driver supports SQL-92, this last step can easily be accomplished by selecting the built-in SQL to SQL Loading Knowledge Module.
Install the Driver
To install the driver, copy the driver JAR (cdata.jdbc.airtable.jar) and .lic file (cdata.jdbc.airtable.lic), located in the installation folder, into the ODI appropriate directory:
- UNIX/Linux without Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib
- UNIX/Linux with Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib and $ODI_HOME/odi/agent/lib
- Windows without Agent: %APPDATA%\Roaming\odi\oracledi\userlib
- Windows with Agent: %APPDATA%\odi\oracledi\userlib and %APPDATA%\odi\agent\lib
Restart ODI to complete the installation.
Reverse Engineer a Model
Reverse engineering the model retrieves metadata about the driver's relational view of Airtable data. After reverse engineering, you can query real-time Airtable data and create mappings based on Airtable tables.
- In ODI, connect to your repository and click New -> Model and Topology Objects.
- On the Model screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
- Name: Enter Airtable.
- Technology: Select Generic SQL (for ODI Version 12.2+, select Microsoft SQL Server).
- Logical Schema: Enter Airtable.
- Context: Select Global.
- On the Data Server screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
- Name: Enter Airtable.
- Driver List: Select Oracle JDBC Driver.
- Driver: Enter cdata.jdbc.airtable.AirtableDriver
- URL: Enter the JDBC URL containing the connection string.
APIKey, BaseId and TableNames parameters are required to connect to Airtable. ViewNames is an optional parameter where views of the tables may be specified.
- APIKey : API Key of your account. To obtain this value, after logging in go to Account. In API section click Generate API key.
- BaseId : Id of your base. To obtain this value, it is in the same section as the APIKey. Click on Airtable API, or navigate to https://airtable.com/api and select a base. In the introduction section you can find "The ID of this base is appxxN2ftedc0nEG7."
- TableNames : A comma separated list of table names for the selected base. These are the same names of tables as found in the UI.
- ViewNames : A comma separated list of views in the format of (table.view) names. These are the same names of the views as found in the UI.
Built-in Connection String Designer
For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Airtable JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.
java -jar cdata.jdbc.airtable.jar
Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.
Below is a typical connection string:
jdbc:airtable:APIKey=keymz3adb53RqsU;BaseId=appxxN2fe34r3rjdG7;TableNames=Table1,...;ViewNames=Table1.View1,...;
- On the Physical Schema screen, enter the following information:
- Name: Select from the Drop Down menu.
- Database (Catalog): Enter CData.
- Owner (Schema): If you select a Schema for Airtable, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter Airtable.
- Database (Work Catalog): Enter CData.
- Owner (Work Schema): If you select a Schema for Airtable, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter Airtable.
- In the opened model click Reverse Engineer to retrieve the metadata for Airtable tables.
Edit and Save Airtable Data
After reverse engineering you can now work with Airtable data in ODI. To edit and save Airtable data, expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator, right-click a table, and click Data. Click Refresh to pick up any changes to the data. Click Save Changes when you are finished making changes.
Create an ETL Project
Follow the steps below to create an ETL from Airtable. You will load SampleTable_1 entities into the sample data warehouse included in the ODI Getting Started VM.
Open SQL Developer and connect to your Oracle database. Right-click the node for your database in the Connections pane and click new SQL Worksheet.
Alternatively you can use SQLPlus. From a command prompt enter the following:
sqlplus / as sysdba
- Enter the following query to create a new target table in the sample data warehouse, which is in the ODI_DEMO schema. The following query defines a few columns that match the SampleTable_1 table in Airtable:
CREATE TABLE ODI_DEMO.TRG_SAMPLETABLE_1 (COLUMN1 NUMBER(20,0),Id VARCHAR2(255));
- In ODI expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator and double-click the Sales Administration node in the ODI_DEMO folder. The model is opened in the Model Editor.
- Click Reverse Engineer. The TRG_SAMPLETABLE_1 table is added to the model.
- Right-click the Mappings node in your project and click New Mapping. Enter a name for the mapping and clear the Create Empty Dataset option. The Mapping Editor is displayed.
- Drag the TRG_SAMPLETABLE_1 table from the Sales Administration model onto the mapping.
- Drag the SampleTable_1 table from the Airtable model onto the mapping.
- Click the source connector point and drag to the target connector point. The Attribute Matching dialog is displayed. For this example, use the default options. The target expressions are then displayed in the properties for the target columns.
- Open the Physical tab of the Mapping Editor and click SAMPLETABLE_1_AP in TARGET_GROUP.
- In the SAMPLETABLE_1_AP properties, select LKM SQL to SQL (Built-In) on the Loading Knowledge Module tab.
You can then run the mapping to load Airtable data into Oracle.