Create a Data Access Object for Helpscout 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 Helpscout integrates connectivity to live Helpscout data in Java applications. By pairing these technologies, you gain simple, programmatic access to Helpscout data. This article explains how to build a basic Data Access Object (DAO) and the accompanying code to read Helpscout data.

Create a DAO for the Helpscout Categories 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 MyCategoriesDAO {
  //request specific data from Helpscout (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT Number FROM Categories WHERE Visibility = :visibility")
  String findNumberByVisibility(@Bind("visibility") String visibility);

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

Open a Connection to Helpscout

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

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

Helpscout API Profile Settings

Generate an API key in Help Scout by going to Your Profile > Authentication > Generate an API Key.

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Helpscout 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 Helpscout will typically look like the following:

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Helpscout.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';

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\Helpscout.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';");
MyCategoriesDAO dao = dbi.open(MyCategoriesDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read Helpscout Data

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

//disply the result of our 'find' method
String number = dao.findNumberByVisibility("public");
System.out.println(number);

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