Connect to Bannerbear Data from Filemaker Pro (Mac)

FileMaker Pro is a cross-platform relational database application that allows users to visually modify a database. When paired with CData Connect AI, FileMaker Pro gets access to live Bannerbear data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Bannerbear using Connect AI and query Bannerbear data in FileMaker Pro.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Bannerbear, allowing you to query data from Bannerbear without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Bannerbear, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Bannerbear data quickly.

Configure Bannerbear Connectivity for FileMaker Pro

Connectivity to Bannerbear from FileMaker Pro is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Bannerbear data from FileMaker Pro, we start by creating and configuring a Bannerbear connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Bannerbear" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Bannerbear.

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

   Bannerbear API Profile Settings

   Retrieve your API keys from the Bannerbear dashboard. Specify the key type (Project or Master) via the KeyType property.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Bannerbear Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Bannerbear data from Filemaker Pro.

Connect to Bannerbear from FileMaker Pro using Connect AI

To establish a connection from FileMaker Pro to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

Configure the ODBC Connection to CData Connect AI

1. Download and install the Actual ODBC Driver for SQL Server (actualtech.com)
2. Configure a DSN for the Actual ODBC driver by setting the following properties:
   • URL: tds.cdata.com
   • Port: Change the port from 1433 to 14333
   • Username: Your Connect AI email address
   • Password: the PAT you created earlier

Query Bannerbear from FileMaker Pro

1. In the SQL Query Builder "SELECT" tab, select the columns to include as part of the query.
2. Open the "WHERE" tab of the SQL Query Builder and select "Show only selected columns."
3. In "Table.Column,"" select a table and a column name.
4. Set the "Operator" to =.
5. Select "Column," and then select the same table and column name as "Table.Column."
6. Click "Insert into SQL Query."
7. If no other modifications to the SQL query are required, click "Execute."

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