Create Informatica Mappings From/To a JDBC Data Source for PDFMonkey

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Create PDFMonkey data objects in Informatica using the standard JDBC connection process: Copy the JAR and then connect.

Informatica provides a powerful, elegant means of transporting and transforming your data. By utilizing the CData JDBC Driver for PDFMonkey, you are gaining access to a driver based on industry-proven standards that integrates seamlessly with Informatica's powerful data transportation and manipulation features. This tutorial shows how to transfer and browse PDFMonkey data in Informatica PowerCenter.

Deploy the Driver

To deploy the driver to the Informatica PowerCenter server, copy the CData JAR and .lic file, located in the lib subfolder in the installation directory, to the following folder: Informatica-installation-directory\services\shared\jars\thirdparty.

To work with PDFMonkey data in the Developer tool, you will need to copy the CData JAR and .lic file, located in the lib subfolder in the installation directory, into the following folders:

  • Informatica-installation-directory\client\externaljdbcjars
  • Informatica-installation-directory\externaljdbcjars

Create the JDBC Connection

Follow the steps below to connect from Informatica Developer:

  1. In the Connection Explorer pane, right-click your domain and click Create a Connection.
  2. In the New Database Connection wizard that is displayed, enter a name and Id for the connection and in the Type menu select JDBC.
  3. In the JDBC Driver Class Name property, enter:
    cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver
  4. In the Connection String property, enter the JDBC URL, using the connection properties for PDFMonkey.

    Using API Key Authentication

    PdfMonkey uses API key authentication. To obtain an API key:

    1. Log in to your PdfMonkey account at https://app.pdfmonkey.io
    2. Navigate to your account settings
    3. Open the API Key page
    4. Copy your API key

    After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

    • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
    Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:
    • APIKey: Set this to your PdfMonkey API key.

    Example Connection String

    Profile=C:\profiles\PdfMonkey.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings="APIKey=your_api_key"
    

    Connecting to PdfMonkey

    Once the authentication is configured, you can connect to PdfMonkey and query data from any of the available tables such as CurrentUser, DocumentCards, Documents, DocumentTemplateCards, and DocumentTemplates.

    Built-in Connection String Designer

    For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the PDFMonkey 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 typical connection string is below:

    jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\PdfMonkey.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings="APIKey=your_api_key"

Browse PDFMonkey Tables

After you have added the driver JAR to the classpath and created a JDBC connection, you can now access PDFMonkey entities in Informatica. Follow the steps below to connect to PDFMonkey and browse PDFMonkey tables:

  1. Connect to your repository.
  2. In the Connection Explorer, right-click the connection and click Connect.
  3. Clear the Show Default Schema Only option.

You can now browse PDFMonkey tables in the Data Viewer: Right-click the node for the table and then click Open. On the Data Viewer view, click Run.

Create PDFMonkey Data Objects

Follow the steps below to add PDFMonkey tables to your project:

  1. Select tables in PDFMonkey, then right-click a table in PDFMonkey, and click Add to Project.
  2. In the resulting dialog, select the option to create a data object for each resource.
  3. In the Select Location dialog, select your project.

    Create a Mapping

    Follow the steps below to add the PDFMonkey source to a mapping:

    1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Mapping.
    2. Expand the node for the PDFMonkey connection and then drag the data object for the table onto the editor.
    3. In the dialog that appears, select the Read option.

    Follow the steps below to map PDFMonkey columns to a flat file:

    1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Data Object.
    2. Select Flat File Data Object -> Create as Empty -> Fixed Width.
    3. In the properties for the PDFMonkey object, select the rows you want, right-click, and then click copy. Paste the rows into the flat file properties.
    4. Drag the flat file data object onto the mapping. In the dialog that appears, select the Write option.
    5. Click and drag to connect columns.

    To transfer PDFMonkey data, right-click in the workspace and then click Run Mapping.

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from PDFMonkey with the API Driver

Connect to PDFMonkey