PowerShell Scripting to Replicate Asana Data to MySQL

The CData Cmdlets for Asana offer live access to Asana data from within PowerShell. Using PowerShell scripts, you can easily automate regular tasks like data replication. This article will walk through using the CData Cmdlets for Asana and the CData Cmdlets for MySQL in PowerShell to replicate Asana data to a MySQL database.

After obtaining the needed connection properties, accessing Asana data in PowerShell and preparing for replication consists of four basic steps.

You can optionally set the following to refine the data returned from Asana.

• WorkspaceId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Workspace to only return projects from the specified workspace. To get your workspace id, navigate to https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/workspaces while logged into Asana. This displays a JSON object containing your workspace name and Id.
• ProjectId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Project to only return data mapped under the specified project. Project IDs can be found in the URL of your project's Overview page. This will be the numbers directly after /0/.

Connect Using OAuth Authentication

You must use OAuth to authenticate with Asana. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Asana using the browser. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

Collecting Asana Data

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module AsanaCmdlets

2. Connect to Asana:

   $asana = Connect-Asana -OAuthClientId $OAuthClientId -OAuthClientSecret $OAuthClientSecret -CallbackURL $CallbackURL

3. Retrieve the data from a specific resource:

   $data = Select-Asana -Connection $asana -Table "projects"

   You can also use the Invoke-Asana cmdlet to execute pure SQL-92 statements:

   $data = Invoke-Asana -Connection $asana -Query 'SELECT * FROM projects WHERE Archived = @Archived' -Params @{'@Archived'='true'}

4. Save a list of the column names from the returned data.

   $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name

Inserting Asana Data into the MySQL Database

With the data and column names collected, you are ready to replicate the data into a MySQL database.

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module MySQLCmdlets

2. Connect to MySQL, using the server address and port of the MySQL server, valid user credentials, and a specific database with the table in which the data will be replicated:

   $mysql = Connect-MySQL -User $User -Password $Password -Database $Database -Server $Server -Port $Port

3. Loop through the Asana data, store the values, and use the Add-MySQL cmdlet to insert the data into the MySQL database, one row at a time. In this example, the table will need to have the same name as the Asana resource (projects) and to exist in the database.

   $data | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "projects" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

You have now replicated your Asana data to a MySQL database. This gives you freedom to work with Asana data in the same way that you work with other MySQL tables, whether that is performing analytics, building reports, or other business functions.

Notes

• Once you have connected to Asana and MySQL in PowerShell, you can pipe command results to perform the replication in a single line:

  Select-Asana -Connection $asana -Table "projects" | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "projects" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

• If you wish to replicate the Asana data to another database using another PowerShell module, you will want to exclude the Columns, Connection, and Table columns from the data returned by the Select-Asana cmdlet since those columns are used to help pipe data from one CData cmdlet to another:

  $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name | ? {$_ -NotIn @('Columns','Connection','Table')}