Integrate Scrapfly Data in Pentaho Data Integration

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Build ETL pipelines based on Scrapfly data in the Pentaho Data Integration tool.

The CData API Driver for JDBC enables access to live data from data pipelines. Pentaho Data Integration is an Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL) engine that data, cleanses the data, and stores data using a uniform format that is accessible.This article shows how to connect to Scrapfly data as a JDBC data source and build jobs and transformations based on Scrapfly data in Pentaho Data Integration.

Configure to Scrapfly Connectivity

The Scrapfly API uses API Key authentication. The API key is passed as the key query parameter on every request.

Using API Key Authentication

Your Scrapfly API key is required to create a connection. To obtain your API key:

  1. Log into your Scrapfly account at scrapfly.io.
  2. Navigate to Dashboard and select API Keys.
  3. Copy your API key (begins with scp-live- for production or scp-test- for the test environment).

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

  • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
  • APIKey: Set this to your Scrapfly API key.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\Scrapfly.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Scrapfly 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.

When you configure the JDBC URL, 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 reports and visualizations.

Below is a typical JDBC URL:

jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Scrapfly.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';

Save your connection string for use in Pentaho Data Integration.

Connect to Scrapfly from Pentaho DI

Open Pentaho Data Integration and select "Database Connection" to configure a connection to the CData API Driver for JDBC

  1. Click "General"
  2. Set Connection name (e.g. Scrapfly Connection)
  3. Set Connection type to "Generic database"
  4. Set Access to "Native (JDBC)"
  5. Set Custom connection URL to your Scrapfly connection string (e.g.
    jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\Scrapfly.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';
  6. Set Custom driver class name to "cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver"
  7. Test the connection and click "OK" to save.

Create a Data Pipeline for Scrapfly

Once the connection to Scrapfly is configured using the CData JDBC Driver, you are ready to create a new transformation or job.

  1. Click "File" >> "New" >> "Transformation/job"
  2. Drag a "Table input" object into the workflow panel and select your Scrapfly connection.
  3. Click "Get SQL select statement" and use the Database Explorer to view the available tables and views.
  4. Select a table and optionally preview the data for verification.

At this point, you can continue your transformation or jb by selecting a suitable destination and adding any transformations to modify, filter, or otherwise alter the data during replication.

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData API Driver for JDBC and start working with your live Scrapfly data in Pentaho Data Integration today.

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