Connect to Okta Data from Filemaker Pro (Mac)

Mohsin Turki
Mohsin Turki
Technical Marketing Engineer
Use CData Connect AI to connect to and query live Okta data from Filemaker Pro on Mac.

FileMaker Pro is a cross-platform relational database application that allows users to visually modify a database. When paired with CData Connect AI, FileMaker Pro gets access to live Okta data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Okta using Connect AI and query Okta data in FileMaker Pro.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Okta, allowing you to query data from Okta without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Okta, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Okta data quickly.

Configure Okta Connectivity for FileMaker Pro

Connectivity to Okta from FileMaker Pro is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Okta data from FileMaker Pro, we start by creating and configuring a Okta connection.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
  2. Adding a Connection
  3. Select "Okta" from the Add Connection panel
  4. Selecting a data source
  5. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Okta.

    To connect to Okta, set the Domain connection string property to your Okta domain.

    You will use OAuth to authenticate with Okta, so you need to create a custom OAuth application.

    Creating a Custom OAuth Application

    From your Okta account:

    1. Sign in to your Okta developer edition organization with your administrator account.
    2. In the Admin Console, go to Applications > Applications.
    3. Click Create App Integration.
    4. For the Sign-in method, select OIDC - OpenID Connect.
    5. For Application type, choose Web Application.
    6. Enter a name for your custom application.
    7. Set the Grant Type to Authorization Code. If you want the token to be automatically refreshed, also check Refresh Token.
    8. Set the callback URL:
      • For desktop applications and headless machines, use http://localhost:33333 or another port number of your choice. The URI you set here becomes the CallbackURL property.
      • For web applications, set the callback URL to a trusted redirect URL. This URL is the web location the user returns to with the token that verifies that your application has been granted access.
    9. In the Assignments section, either select Limit access to selected groups and add a group, or skip group assignment for now.
    10. Save the OAuth application.
    11. The application's Client Id and Client Secret are displayed on the application's General tab. Record these for future use. You will use the Client Id to set the OAuthClientId and the Client Secret to set the OAuthClientSecret.
    12. Check the Assignments tab to confirm that all users who must access the application are assigned to the application.
    13. On the Okta API Scopes tab, select the scopes you wish to grant to the OAuth application. These scopes determine the data that the app has permission to read, so a scope for a particular view must be granted for the driver to have permission to query that view. To confirm the scopes required for each view, see the view-specific pages in Data Model < Views in the Help documentation.
    Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  6. Click Save & Test
  7. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Okta Connection page and update the User-based permissions. Updating 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. Creating a new PAT
  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 Okta data from Filemaker Pro.

Connect to Okta from FileMaker Pro using Connect AI

To establish a connection from FileMaker Pro to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

Configure the ODBC Connection to CData Connect AI

  1. Download and install the Actual ODBC Driver for SQL Server (actualtech.com)
  2. Configure a DSN for the Actual ODBC driver by setting the following properties:
    • URL: tds.cdata.com
    • Port: Change the port from 1433 to 14333
    • Username: Your Connect AI email address
    • Password: the PAT you created earlier

Query Okta from FileMaker Pro

  1. In the SQL Query Builder "SELECT" tab, select the columns to include as part of the query. Configuring the query by selecting columns.
  2. Open the "WHERE" tab of the SQL Query Builder and select "Show only selected columns."
  3. In "Table.Column,"" select a table and a column name.
  4. Set the "Operator" to =.
  5. Select "Column," and then select the same table and column name as "Table.Column."
  6. Click "Insert into SQL Query." Configuring the query by setting the WHERE clause.
  7. If no other modifications to the SQL query are required, click "Execute."

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