Connect to Airtable Data in RapidMiner

This article shows how you can easily integrate the CData JDBC driver for Airtable into your processes in RapidMiner. This article uses the CData JDBC Driver for Airtable to transfer Airtable data to a process in RapidMiner.

Connect to Airtable in RapidMiner as a JDBC Data Source

You can follow the procedure below to establish a JDBC connection to Airtable:

1. Add a new database driver for Airtable: Click Connections -> Manage Database Drivers.
2. In the resulting wizard, click the Add button and enter a name for the connection.
3. Enter the prefix for the JDBC URL: jdbc:airtable:
4. Enter the path to the cdata.jdbc.airtable.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
5. Enter the driver class: cdata.jdbc.airtable.AirtableDriver
6. Create a new Airtable connection: Click Connections -> Manage Database Connections.
7. Enter a name for your connection.
8. For Database System, select the Airtable driver you configured previously.
9. Enter your connection string in the Host box.

   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.

   A typical connection string is below:

   APIKey=keymz3adb53RqsU;BaseId=appxxN2fe34r3rjdG7;TableNames=Table1,...;ViewNames=Table1.View1,...;
10. Enter your username and password if necessary.

You can now use your Airtable connection with the various RapidMiner operators in your process. To retrieve Airtable data, drag the Retrieve operator from the Operators view. With the Retrieve operator selected, you can then define which table to retrieve in the Parameters view by clicking the folder icon next to the "repository entry." In the resulting Repository Browser, you can expand your connection node to select the desired example set.

Finally, wire the output to the Retrieve process to a result, and run the process to see the Airtable data.