Work with Live LDAP Objects in Power Query

Power Query is a data transformation and data preparation engine. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to LDAP objects from Power Query. This article shows how to connect to Connect AI from Power Query through Microsoft Excel and get live access to LDAP objects for transformation and preparation.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for LDAP, allowing you to easily integrate with live LDAP objects in Power Query — without replicating the data. CData Connect AI looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Power Query and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to LDAP, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return LDAP objects.

Configure LDAP Connectivity for Power Query

Connectivity to LDAP from Power Query is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with LDAP objects from Power Query, we start by creating and configuring a LDAP connection.

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

2. Select "LDAP" from the Add Connection panel

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

   To establish a connection, the following properties under the Authentication section must be provided:

   • Valid User and Password credentials (e.g., Domain\BobF or cn=Bob F,ou=Employees,dc=Domain).
   • Server information, including the IP or host name of the Server, as well as the Port.

   • BaseDN: This will limit the scope of LDAP searches to the height of the distinguished name provided.

     Note: Specifying a narrow BaseDN may greatly increase performance; for example, cn=users,dc=domain will only return results contained within cn=users and its children.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add LDAP 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 LDAP objects from Power Query.

Working with Live LDAP Objects in Power Query

With the connection to Connect AI configured, you are ready to work with live LDAP objects in Power Query.

1. In Microsoft Excel, open the Power Query Editor (from the Data ribbon, click Get Data -> Launch Power Query Editor)
2. Click New Source -> SQL Server
3. In the SQL Server database modal:
   • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333
   • (Optional) Set Database to the name of the LDAP connection (e.g. LDAP1 )
   
4. In the SQL Server credentials modal, select "Database" and
   • Set User to your Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected] )
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
   
5. Click Connect
6. Select the table(s) you wish to work with in the Navigator and click "OK"

At this point, you have live access to LDAP objects from Power Query for transformation and preparation.

SQL Access to LDAP Objects

Now you have a direct connection to live LDAP objects from Microsoft Power Query. You can create more connections and transform and preparte your data to better drive business — all without replicating LDAP objects.

To get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect AI.