Viewing PDFMonkey Data in RAD Studio Data Explorer

Embarcadero RAD Studio provides a development environment for Delphi and C++Builder applications. With the CData ODBC Driver for PDFMonkey, you gain access to live PDFMonkey data within RAD Studio, abstracting the data into tables, views, and stored procedures that can be used to both retrieve PDFMonkey data. This article will walk through connecting to PDFMonkey using the Data Explorer.

Configure a Connection to PDFMonkey

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.

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.

• 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.

Connecting to PDFMonkey Data Using Data Explorer

You can create a simple application for displaying PDFMonkey data by utilizing the CData FireDAC Components for PDFMonkey and a new VCL Forms Application:

1. Open the Data Explorer in RAD Studio and expand FireDAC.
2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
3. Click Add New Connection.
4. Enter a name for the connection.
5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for PDFMonkey.
6. Back in the Data Explorer, expand the views for the connection.

7. Create a new VCL Forms application and drag a view (for example: CurrentUser) onto the form.

   
8. Select the CurrentUserView object on the form and set the Active property to true.

9. Right-click on the object, bind visually, and link everything (*) to a new control (TStringGrid).

   

10. Arrange the TStringGrid on the form and run the application to see the CurrentUser data.

    

Related Articles

Below you can find other articles for using the CData ODBC Driver with RAD Studio, Delphi, and C++ Builder.

• DataBind Controls to PDFMonkey Data in C++Builder
• DataBind Controls to PDFMonkey Data in Delphi
• Build a Simple VCL Application for PDFMonkey Data