Create a Data Access Object for Copper Data using JDBI

JDBI is a SQL convenience library for Java that exposes two different style APIs, a fluent style and a SQL object style. The CData JDBC Driver for Copper integrates connectivity to live Copper data in Java applications. By pairing these technologies, you gain simple, programmatic access to Copper data. This article explains how to build a basic Data Access Object (DAO) and the accompanying code to read Copper data.

Create a DAO for the Copper Account Entity

The interface below declares the desired behavior for the SQL object to create a single method for each SQL statement to be implemented.

public interface MyAccountDAO {
  //request specific data from Copper (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT Name FROM Account WHERE SettingEnableLeads = :settingEnableLeads")
  String findNameBySettingEnableLeads(@Bind("settingEnableLeads") String settingEnableLeads);

  /*
   * close with no args is used to close the connection
   */
  void close();
}

Open a Connection to Copper

Collect the necessary connection properties and construct the appropriate JDBC URL for connecting to Copper.

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

Copper API Profile Settings

In Copper CRM, go to Settings > Integrations > API Keys and click Generate API Key. Provide both the API key and the email address associated with your account.

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

A connection string for Copper will typically look like the following:

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Copper.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key;UserEmail=your_email';

Use the configured JDBC URL to obtain an instance of the DAO interface. The particular method shown below will open a handle bound to the instance, so the instance needs to be closed explicitly to release the handle and the bound JDBC connection.

DBI dbi = new DBI("jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Copper.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key;UserEmail=your_email';");
MyAccountDAO dao = dbi.open(MyAccountDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read Copper Data

With the connection open to Copper, simply call the previously defined method to retrieve data from the Account entity in Copper.

//disply the result of our 'find' method
String name = dao.findNameBySettingEnableLeads("true");
System.out.println(name);

Since the JDBI library is able to work with JDBC connections, you can easily produce a SQL Object API for Copper by integrating with the CData JDBC Driver for Copper. Download a free trial and work with live Copper data in custom Java applications today.