Connect to Live Cvent Data in PostGresSQL Interface through CData Connect AI

There are a vast number of PostgreSQL clients available on the Internet. PostgreSQL is a popular interface for data access. When you pair PostgreSQL with CData Connect AI, you gain database-like access to live Cvent data from PostgreSQL. In this article, we walk through the process of connecting to Cvent data in Connect AI and establishing a connection between Connect AI and PostgreSQL using a TDS foreign data wrapper (FDW).

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Cvent, allowing you to query data from Cvent 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 Cvent, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Cvent data quickly.

Connect to Cvent in Connect AI

CData Connect AI uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.

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

2. Select "Cvent" from the Add Connection panel

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

   Before you can authenticate to Cvent, you must create a workspace and an OAuth application.

   Creating a Workspace

   To create a workspace:

   1. Sign into Cvent and navigate to App Switcher (the blue button in the upper right corner of the page) >> Admin.
   2. In the Admin menu, navigate to Integrations >> REST API.
   3. A new tab launches for Developer Management. Click on Manage API Access in the new tab.
   4. Create a Workspace and name it. Select the scopes you would like your developers to have access to. Scopes control what data domains the developer can access.
      • Choose All to allow developers to choose any scope, and any future scopes added to the REST API.
      • Choose Custom to limit the scopes developers can choose for their OAuth apps to selected scopes. To access all tables exposed by the driver, you need to set the following scopes:

        event/attendees:read	event/attendees:write	event/contacts:read
        event/contacts:write	event/custom-fields:read	event/custom-fields:write
        event/events:read	event/events:write	event/sessions:delete
        event/sessions:read	event/sessions:write	event/speakers:delete
        event/speakers:read	event/speakers:write	budget/budget-items:read
        budget/budget-items:write	exhibitor/exhibitors:read	exhibitor/exhibitors:write
        survey/surveys:read	survey/surveys:write

   Creating an OAuth Application

   After you have set up a Workspace and invited them, developers can sign up and create a custom OAuth app. See the Creating a Custom OAuth Application section in the Help documentation for more information.

   Connecting to Cvent

   After creating an OAuth application, set the following connection properties to connect to Cvent:

   • InitiateOAuth: GETANDREFRESH. Used to automatically get and refresh the OAuthAccessToken.
   • OAuthClientId: The Client ID associated with the OAuth application. You can find this on the Applications page in the Cvent Developer Portal.
   • OAuthClientSecret: The Client secret associated with the OAuth application. You can find this on the Applications page in the Cvent Developer Portal.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Cvent 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 Cvent data from PostgreSQL.

Build the TDS Foreign Data Wrapper

The Foreign Data Wrapper can be installed as an extension to PostgreSQL, without recompiling PostgreSQL. The tds_fdw extension is used as an example (https://github.com/tds-fdw/tds_fdw).

1. You can clone and build the git repository via something like the following view source:

   sudo apt-get install git
   git clone https://github.com/tds-fdw/tds_fdw.git
   cd tds_fdw
   make USE_PGXS=1
   sudo make USE_PGXS=1 install
   

   Note: If you have several PostgreSQL versions and you do not want to build for the default one, first locate where the binary for pg_config is, take note of the full path, and then append PG_CONFIG= after USE_PGXS=1 at the make commands.
2. After you finish the installation, then start the server:

   sudo service postgresql start
   

3. Then go inside the Postgres database

   psql -h localhost -U postgres -d postgres
   

   Note: Instead of localhost you can put the IP where your PostgreSQL is hosted.

Connect to Cvent data as a PostgreSQL Database and query the data!

After you have installed the extension, follow the steps below to start executing queries to Cvent data:

1. Log into your database.
2. Load the extension for the database:

   CREATE EXTENSION tds_fdw;
   

3. Create a server object for Cvent data:

   CREATE SERVER "Cvent1" FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER tds_fdw OPTIONS (servername'tds.cdata.com', port '14333', database 'Cvent1');
   

4. Configure user mapping with your email and Personal Access Token from your Connect AI account:

   CREATE USER MAPPING for postgres SERVER "Cvent1" OPTIONS (username '[email protected]', password 'your_personal_access_token' );
   

5. Create the local schema:

   CREATE SCHEMA "Cvent1";
   

6. Create a foreign table in your local database:

   #Using a table_name definition:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "Cvent1".Events  (      
   id varchar,      
   Title varchar)      
   SERVER "Cvent1"
   OPTIONS(table_name 'Cvent.Events', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   
   #Or using a schema_name and table_name definition:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "Cvent1".Events (      
   id varchar,      
   Title varchar)      
   SERVER "Cvent1"
   OPTIONS (schema_name 'Cvent', table_name 'Events', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   
   #Or using a query definition:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE  "Cvent1".Events (
   id varchar,      
   Title varchar)      
   SERVER "Cvent1"
   OPTIONS (query 'SELECT * FROM Cvent.Events', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   
   #Or setting a remote column name:
   
   CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "Cvent1".Events (
   id varchar,
   col2 varchar OPTIONS (column_name 'Title'))
   SERVER "Cvent1"
   OPTIONS (schema_name 'Cvent', table_name 'Events', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
   

7. You can now execute read/write commands to Cvent:

   SELECT id, Title
   FROM "Cvent1".Events;
   

More Information & Free Trial

Now, you have created a simple query from live Cvent data. For more information on connecting to Cvent (and more than 200 other data sources), visit the Connect AI page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Cvent data in PostgreSQL.