Connect to ApprovalMax Data in DigitalSuite Studio through RunMyProcess DSEC

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use Arkobi Digital's low-code cloud native platform RunMyProcess's DigitalSuite EnterpriseConnect (DSEC) to connect to ApprovalMax.

The CData JDBC Driver for ApprovalMax implements JDBC Standards and enables a applications ranging from BI to IDE to connect with ApprovalMax. In this article, we describe how to connect to ApprovalMax data from Arkobi Digital RunMyProcess's DSEC and connect to ApprovalMax in RunMyProcess.

Setting up EnterpriseConnect Agent

Configure the EnterpriseConnect Agent following the EnterpriseConnect page in the RunMyProcess documentation.

Setting up JDBC Adapter

The JDBC Adapter section describes the steps to connect to RDBMS through JDBC. Follow the steps and open the JDBC.config file.

  1. Create a JSON entry for the CData JDBC Driver for ApprovalMax, e.g.
    API = {
      "sqlDriver" : "...",
      "sqlSource" : "...",
      "sqlDriverPath" : "..."
    }
    
  2. Set the "sqlDriver" field to the Class name for the CData JDBC Driver, e.g.
    cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver
  3. Set the "sqlSource" field to a JDBC URL for connecting to ApprovalMax, e.g.
    jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\ApprovalMax.apip;AuthScheme=OAuth;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackURL=your_callback_url;

    Built-in Connection String Designer

    For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the ApprovalMax JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

    
    java -jar cdata.jdbc.api.jar
    

    Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

    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.

    Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
  4. Set the "sqlDriverPath" field to the name of the CData JDBC Driver JAR file, e.g.
    cdata.jdbc.api.jar

Sample JDBC.config File


#DBAgent Configuration
API = {"sqlDriver" : "cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver", "sqlSource" = "jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\ApprovalMax.apip;AuthScheme=OAuth;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackURL=your_callback_url;","sqlDriverPath" = "cdata.jdbc.api.jar" }

Put the JDBC driver JAR file (cdata.jdbc.api.jar) into the same directory as unified-adapter-[version].jar.

runmyprocess

Note: Make sure to put the CData license file (cdata.jdbc.api.lic) into the same directory. Since the license is generated based on the unique identifier of the machine where the product in installed, you will need an offline activation if you want to put the file on another machine.

Starting DigitalSuite EnterpriseConnect Agent

In Windows, start RunMyProcess DigitalSuite EnterpriseConnect Agent in Windows services. To start the application through command line, see Starting the EnterpriseConnect Agent in the RunMyProcess documents.

Starting the JDBC Adapter

Start the JDBC Adapter from runAdapter.bat. Once the Adapter is running, you can access the application through the agent address (e.g. 127.0.0.1:8080). Below is an example executing the command in Windows.


... > java -Djava.util.logging.config.file=./log.properties -cp lib/* org.runmyprocess.sec2.AdapterHandler :
2021-06-09 14:37:58|INFO|correlationId=|Searching for config file...
2021-06-09 14:37:58|INFO|correlationId=|Adapter Handler started with [JDBC] configuration
2021-06-09 14:37:59|INFO|correlationId=|agent address: 127.0.0.1:8080
2021-06-09 14:38:00.251:INFO::ConnectionThread: Logging initialized @1820ms to org.eclipse.jetty.util.log.StdErrLog
2021-06-09 14:38:00|INFO|correlationId=|onConnect() websocket connection between Agent and Adapter established

Once the DigitalSuite EnterpriseConnect Agent and JDBC Adapter are running, access http://localhost:(specified-port-number)/ through your browser to open the page shown below.

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Check the availability of the JDBC Adapter using tools such as Postman or cURL. Here, we use Postman to send the HTTP POST request.

Configure the RequestHeader as follows:


Content-Type application/json

Configure the RequestBody as follows:


{
	"protocol":"JDBC",
	"data":{
		"DBType":"API",
		"sqlUsername":"",
		"sqlPassword":"",
		"sqlStatement":"SELECT * FROM UserProfiles"
	}
}

If the JDBC.config file contains credential information, sqlUsername and sqlPassword can be left empty. If you are not sure of the table name, you can retrieve the list of tables using the request SELECT * FROM sys_tables

The request is successful if the Status is 200 and the Body contains ApprovalMax data in JSON format.

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Connect to ApprovalMax through DSEC Agent in DigitalSuite Studio

Create a DigitalSuite Studio project and then create a Provider in the project.

  • URL: The URL for accessing JDBC Agent (e.g. http:localhost:8080/)
  • Authentication Scheme: Login/password
  • Login: The value from agent.user in the application.properties file
  • Password: agent.password in the application.properties file
  • Secured: Checked
  • Use DigitalSuite EnterpriseConnect: Checked
  • With domain: The value from agent.domain in application.properties file
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Next, create a Connector in the Provider.

  • Connector URL: Leave this empty
  • Architecture: REST/XML-RPC
  • Method: POST
  • Result format: JSON
  • Accept media type: application/json
  • Character set: Automatic
  • Content: Same as the Request body used in the JDBC Adapter
  • Content type: application/json
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The JSON data we used as the Request body in JDBC Adapter:


{
	"protocol":"JDBC",
	"data":{
		"DBType":"API",
		"sqlUsername":"",
		"sqlPassword":"",
		"sqlStatement":"SELECT * FROM UserProfiles"
	}
}

Open Launch Test to perform the test. The test is successful if ApprovalMax data is shown in Result on the right pane.

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Now you can use ApprovalMax data in RunMyProcess DigitalSuite Studio through DSEC.

For the detailed information on supported SQL commands, refer to the SQL Compliance section in our help documentation. For information on tables, refer to the Data Model section.

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from ApprovalMax with the API Driver

Connect to ApprovalMax