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

Create a DAO for the Insightly ActivitySets 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 MyActivitySetsDAO {
  //request specific data from Insightly (String type is used for simplicity)
  @SqlQuery("SELECT Name FROM ActivitySets WHERE ForContacts = :forContacts")
  String findNameByForContacts(@Bind("forContacts") String forContacts);

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

Open a Connection to Insightly

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

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

Insightly API Profile Settings

Navigate to your Insightly profile and select User Settings > API to find your API key. The Pod value (e.g.,

na1

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Insightly.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key;Pod=na1';

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\Insightly.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key;Pod=na1';");
MyActivitySetsDAO dao = dbi.open(MyActivitySetsDAO.class);

//do stuff with the DAO

dao.close();

Read Insightly Data

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

//disply the result of our 'find' method
String name = dao.findNameByForContacts("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 Insightly by integrating with the CData JDBC Driver for Insightly. Download a free trial and work with live Insightly data in custom Java applications today.