Rapidly Develop Drift-Driven Apps with Active Query Builder



Leverage the Active Query Builder SQL interface builder and the ease of .NET data access to create data-driven WinForms and ASP.NET apps.

Write standard .NET to expose Drift data through an SQL interface: Active Query Builder helps developers write SQL interfaces; the CData ODBC Driver for Drift enables standards-based access to Drift. This integration uses the Microsoft ADO.NET Provider for ODBC as a bridge between the ODBC Driver and the Active Query Builder objects to build a visual SQL composer.

Connect to Drift as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

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

Drift API Profile Settings

Drift uses OAuth-based authentication.

You must first register an application here: https://dev.drift.com. Your app will be assigned a client ID and a client secret. Set these in your connection string via the OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret properties. More information on setting up an OAuth application can be found at https://devdocs.drift.com/docs/.

After setting the following options in the ProfileSettings connection property, you are ready to connect:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
  • OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client Id that is specified in your app settings.
  • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to Client Secret that is specified in your app settings.
  • CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.
  • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.

Use SQL to Interact with Drift

Follow the steps below to create a WinForms visual query builder.

  1. Open Active Query Builder for .NET WinForms.
  2. In the new Windows Forms project go to the "File" menu and click "Connect..."
  3. Under Database Connections, click "Add..."
  4. Set your desired Connection Name (e.g. CData Drift), set Connection Type to "ODBC" and locate your previously configured DSN in the "User/System" DSN dropdown.
  5. Click "OK" to save the new connection.
  6. Back in the Database Connection wizard, select the newly created connection and click "OK."
  7. Click "File" > "New Query" to create a QueryBuilder

You can now build queries visually: Double-click a table in the Columns Pane Area and an entity/relationship diagram is displayed in the Query Building Area. Columns that you select in the diagram are added to the query.

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from Drift with the API Driver

Connect to Drift