Create Informatica Mappings From/To a JDBC Data Source for Browse AI

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Create Browse AI data objects in Informatica using the standard JDBC connection process: Copy the JAR and then connect.

Informatica provides a powerful, elegant means of transporting and transforming your data. By utilizing the CData JDBC Driver for Browse AI, you are gaining access to a driver based on industry-proven standards that integrates seamlessly with Informatica's powerful data transportation and manipulation features. This tutorial shows how to transfer and browse Browse AI data in Informatica PowerCenter.

Deploy the Driver

To deploy the driver to the Informatica PowerCenter server, copy the CData JAR and .lic file, located in the lib subfolder in the installation directory, to the following folder: Informatica-installation-directory\services\shared\jars\thirdparty.

To work with Browse AI data in the Developer tool, you will need to copy the CData JAR and .lic file, located in the lib subfolder in the installation directory, into the following folders:

  • Informatica-installation-directory\client\externaljdbcjars
  • Informatica-installation-directory\externaljdbcjars

Create the JDBC Connection

Follow the steps below to connect from Informatica Developer:

  1. In the Connection Explorer pane, right-click your domain and click Create a Connection.
  2. In the New Database Connection wizard that is displayed, enter a name and Id for the connection and in the Type menu select JDBC.
  3. In the JDBC Driver Class Name property, enter:
    cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver
  4. In the Connection String property, enter the JDBC URL, using the connection properties for Browse AI.

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

    BrowseAI API Profile Settings

    BrowseAI is a web scraping and automation platform that allows you to train robots to extract and monitor data from websites. Authentication is performed using an API key that is sent as a Bearer token in the Authorization header.

    The BrowseAI API key has the format {userId}:{apiKey}, where both parts are UUIDs separated by a colon. This full string is provided as a single value in the BrowseAI dashboard.

    To obtain your API key:

    1. Log in to your BrowseAI account at https://app.browse.ai
    2. Navigate to Settings in the dashboard
    3. Locate the API section
    4. Copy the full API key string displayed (format: userId:apiKey)

    After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

    • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.

    Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:

    • APIKey: Set this to your BrowseAI API key (format: userId:apiKey).

    Built-in Connection String Designer

    For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Browse AI 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.

    Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)

    A typical connection string is below:

    jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\BrowseAI.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_user_id:your_api_key';

Browse Browse AI Tables

After you have added the driver JAR to the classpath and created a JDBC connection, you can now access Browse AI entities in Informatica. Follow the steps below to connect to Browse AI and browse Browse AI tables:

  1. Connect to your repository.
  2. In the Connection Explorer, right-click the connection and click Connect.
  3. Clear the Show Default Schema Only option. The driver models Browse AI entities as relational tables. (Salesforce is shown.)

You can now browse Browse AI tables in the Data Viewer: Right-click the node for the table and then click Open. On the Data Viewer view, click Run.

Table data and metadata in the Data Viewer. (Salesforce is shown.)

Create Browse AI Data Objects

Follow the steps below to add Browse AI tables to your project:

  1. Select tables in Browse AI, then right-click a table in Browse AI, and click Add to Project.
  2. In the resulting dialog, select the option to create a data object for each resource.
  3. In the Select Location dialog, select your project.

    Create a Mapping

    Follow the steps below to add the Browse AI source to a mapping:

    1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Mapping.
    2. Expand the node for the Browse AI connection and then drag the data object for the table onto the editor.
    3. In the dialog that appears, select the Read option.
    The source Browse AI table in the mapping. (Salesforce is shown.)

    Follow the steps below to map Browse AI columns to a flat file:

    1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Data Object.
    2. Select Flat File Data Object -> Create as Empty -> Fixed Width.
    3. In the properties for the Browse AI object, select the rows you want, right-click, and then click copy. Paste the rows into the flat file properties.
    4. Drag the flat file data object onto the mapping. In the dialog that appears, select the Write option.
    5. Click and drag to connect columns.

    To transfer Browse AI data, right-click in the workspace and then click Run Mapping.

    The completed mapping. (Salesforce is shown.)

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from Browse AI with the API Driver

Connect to Browse AI