How to Access Live Lakebase Data in Power Automate Desktop via ODBC

The CData ODBC Driver for Lakebase enables you to access live Lakebase data in workflow automation tools like Power Automate. This article shows how to integrate Lakebase data into a simple workflow, moving Lakebase data into a CSV file.

Through optimized data processing, CData ODBC Drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Lakebase data in Microsoft Power Automate. When you issue complex SQL queries from Power Automate to Lakebase, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Lakebase and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (e.g. SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connect to Lakebase 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.

• DatabricksInstance: The Databricks instance or server hostname, provided in the format instance-abcdef12-3456-7890-abcd-abcdef123456.database.cloud.databricks.com.
• Server: The host name or IP address of the server hosting the Lakebase database.
• Port (optional): The port of the server hosting the Lakebase database, set to 5432 by default.
• Database (optional): The database to connect to after authenticating to the Lakebase Server, set to the authenticating user's default database by default.

OAuth Client Authentication

To authenicate using OAuth client credentials, you need to configure an OAuth client in your service principal. In short, you need to do the following:

1. Create and configure a new service principal
2. Assign permissions to the service principal
3. Create an OAuth secret for the service principal

For more information, refer to the Setting Up OAuthClient Authentication section in the Help documentation.

OAuth PKCE Authentication

To authenticate using the OAuth code type with PKCE (Proof Key for Code Exchange), set the following properties:

• AuthScheme: OAuthPKCE.
• User: The authenticating user's user ID.

For more information, refer to the Help documentation.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing workflows.

Integrate Lakebase Data into Power Automate Workflows

After configuring the DSN for Lakebase, you are ready to integrate Lakebase data into your Power Automate workflows. Open Microsoft Power Automate, add a new flow, and name the flow.

In the flow editor, you can add the actions to connect to Lakebase, query Lakebase using SQL, and write the query results to a CSV document.

Add an Open SQL Connection Action

Add an "Open SQL connection" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

• Connection string: DSN=CData Lakebase Source

After configuring the action, click Save.

Add an Execute SQL Statement Action

Add an "Execute SQL statement" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

• Get connection by: SQL connection variable
• SQL connection: %SQLConnection% (the variable from the "Open SQL connection" action above)
• SQL statement: SELECT * FROM Orders

After configuring the action, click Save.

Add a Write to CSV File Action

Add a "Write to CSV file" action (Actions -> File) and configure the properties.

• Variable to write to: %QueryResult% (the variable from the "Execute SQL statement" action above)
• File path: set to a file on disk
• Configure Advanced settings as needed.

After configuring the action, click Save.

Add a Close SQL Connection Action

Add a "Close SQL connection" action (Actions -> Database) and configure the properties.

• SQL Connection: %SQLConnection% (the variable from the "Open SQL connection" action above)

After configuring the action, click Save.

Save & Run the Flow

Once you have configured all the actions for the flow, click the disk icon to save the flow. Click the play icon to run the flow.

Now you have a workflow to move Lakebase data into a CSV file.

With the CData ODBC Driver for Lakebase, you get live connectivity to Lakebase data within your Microsoft Power Automate workflows.

Related Power Automate Articles

This article walks through using the CData ODBC Driver for Lakebase with Power Automate Desktop. Check out our other articles for more ways to work with Power Automate (Desktop & Online):

• Lakebase Data in Power Automate Desktop using CData Connect