PowerShell Scripting to Replicate BigCommerce Data to MySQL

The CData Cmdlets for BigCommerce offer live access to BigCommerce 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 BigCommerce and the CData Cmdlets for MySQL in PowerShell to replicate BigCommerce data to a MySQL database.

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

BigCommerce authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Big Commerce developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. These three parameters will be set as connection properties to your driver.

Additionally, in order to connect to your BigCommerce Store, you will need your StoreId. To find your Store Id please follow these steps:

1. Log in to your BigCommerce account.
2. From the Home Page, select Advanced Settings > API Accounts.
3. Click Create API Account.
4. A text box named API Path will appear on your screen.
5. Inside you can see a URL of the following structure: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{Store Id}/v3.
6. As demonstrated above, your Store Id will be between the 'stores/' and '/v3' path paramters.
7. Once you have retrieved your Store Id you can either click Cancel or proceed in creating an API Account in case you do not have one already.

Collecting BigCommerce Data

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module BigCommerceCmdlets

2. Connect to BigCommerce:

   $bigcommerce = Connect-BigCommerce -OAuthClientId $OAuthClientId -OAuthClientSecret $OAuthClientSecret -StoreId $StoreId -CallbackURL $CallbackURL

3. Retrieve the data from a specific resource:

   $data = Select-BigCommerce -Connection $bigcommerce -Table "Customers"

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

   $data = Invoke-BigCommerce -Connection $bigcommerce -Query 'SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE FirstName = @FirstName' -Params @{'@FirstName'='Bob'}

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

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

Inserting BigCommerce 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 BigCommerce 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 BigCommerce resource (Customers) and to exist in the database.

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

You have now replicated your BigCommerce data to a MySQL database. This gives you freedom to work with BigCommerce 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 BigCommerce and MySQL in PowerShell, you can pipe command results to perform the replication in a single line:

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

• If you wish to replicate the BigCommerce 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-BigCommerce 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')}