Automate ApprovalMax Integration Tasks from PowerShell

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Are you in search of a quick and easy way to access ApprovalMax data from PowerShell? This article demonstrates how to utilize the ApprovalMax Cmdlets for tasks like connecting to ApprovalMax data, automating operations, downloading data, and more.

The CData API Driver for ADO.NET is a standard ADO.NET Provider that make it easy to accomplish data cleansing, normalization, backup, and other integration tasks by enabling real-time access to ApprovalMax.

ADO.NET Provider

The ADO.NET Provider provides a SQL interface for ApprovalMax; this tutorial shows how to use the Provider to retrieve ApprovalMax data.

Once you have acquired the necessary connection properties, accessing ApprovalMax data in PowerShell can be enabled in three steps.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the ApprovalMax Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\ApprovalMax.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for ApprovalMax (see below).

ApprovalMax API Profile Settings

To authenticate to ApprovalMax and connect to your own data or to allow other users to connect to their data, the ApprovalMax Public API requires the OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow.

First, you will need to register an OAuth application with ApprovalMax. Sign in to the ApprovalMax Developer Portal (https://developer.approvalmax.com/applications) and create a new application. Your OAuth application will be assigned a Client ID and a Client Secret, and you must register at least one Redirect URI (Callback URL).

A Premium ApprovalMax subscription (or active trial) is required to use the Public API.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
  • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
  • OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client ID that is shown in your application settings on the ApprovalMax Developer Portal.
  • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the Client Secret that is shown in your application settings on the ApprovalMax Developer Portal.
  • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that is registered in your application settings.
  • Scope: (Optional) Override the default OAuth scopes. The default value openid offline_access https://www.approvalmax.com/scopes/public_api/read grants read-only access to all tables in this profile and enables refresh tokens. Use the principle of least privilege when narrowing this scope.

The OAuth Authorization URL is https://identity.approvalmax.com/connect/authorize and the Token URL is https://identity.approvalmax.com/connect/token. Both authorization_code and refresh_token grant types are supported.

  1. Load the provider's assembly:

    
    [Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile("C:\Program Files\CData\CData API Driver for ADO.NET\lib\System.Data.CData.API.dll")
        
  2. Connect to ApprovalMax:

     
    $conn= New-Object System.Data.CData.API.APIConnection("Profile=C:\profiles\ApprovalMax.apip;AuthScheme=OAuth;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackURL=your_callback_url;")
    $conn.Open()
    
  3. Instantiate the APIDataAdapter, execute an SQL query, and output the results:

    
    $sql="SELECT UserId, Email from UserProfiles"
    
    $da= New-Object System.Data.CData.API.APIDataAdapter($sql, $conn)
    $dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable
    $da.Fill($dt)
    
    $dt.Rows | foreach {
    	Write-Host $_.userid $_.email
    }
      

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from ApprovalMax with the API Driver

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