Configure the CData JDBC Driver for ServiceDesk Plus in a Connection Pool in Tomcat

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Connect to ServiceDesk Plus data from a connection pool in Tomcat.

The CData JDBC Drivers support standard JDBC interfaces to integrate with Web applications running on the JVM. This article details how to connect to ServiceDesk Plus data from a connection pool in Tomcat.

Connect to ServiceDesk Plus Data through a Connection Pool in Tomcat

  1. Copy the CData JAR and CData .lic file to $CATALINA_HOME/lib. The CData JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
  2. Add a definition of the resource to the context. Specify the JDBC URL here.

    Using OAuth Authentication

    ServiceDeskPlus uses Zoho OAuth 2.0 for secure authentication. To set up OAuth access:

    1. Register your application in the Zoho Developer Console at https://api-console.zoho.com
    2. Configure your redirect URI to match your application setup
    3. Note your Client ID and Client Secret from the application settings

    After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

    • AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
    • OAuthClientId: Set this to your Zoho application Client ID.
    • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to your Zoho application Client Secret.
    • Scope: Set this to the required ServiceDeskPlus permissions (default includes read access to requests, problems, assets, and projects).
    • Domain: Set this to your ServiceDeskPlus domain
    • Portal: Set this to your ServiceDeskPlus portal

    Example Connection String

    Profile=C:\profiles\ServiceDeskPlus.apip;ProfileSettings="Portal=itdesk;Domain=.in;Scope=SDPOnDemand.requests.READ SDPOnDemand.problems.READ SDPOnDemand.assets.READ SDPOnDemand.projects.READ";AuthScheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;
    

    Built-in Connection String Designer

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

    You can see the JDBC URL specified in the resource definition below.

    
    <Resource name="jdbc/api"   auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver" factory="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory" url="jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\ServiceDeskPlus.apip;ProfileSettings="Portal=itdesk;Domain=.in;Scope=SDPOnDemand.requests.READ SDPOnDemand.problems.READ SDPOnDemand.assets.READ SDPOnDemand.projects.READ";AuthScheme=OAuth;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
    

    To allow a single application to access ServiceDesk Plus data, add the code above to the context.xml in the application's META-INF directory.

    For a shared resource configuration, add the code above to the context.xml located in $CATALINA_BASE/conf. A shared resource configuration provides connectivity to ServiceDesk Plus for all applications.

  3. Add a reference to the resource to the web.xml for the application.
    
      ServiceDesk Plus data JSP
      jdbc/API
      javax.sql.DataSource
      Container
    
    
  4. Initialize connections from the connection pool:
    Context initContext = new InitialContext();
    Context envContext  = (Context)initContext.lookup("java:/comp/env");
    DataSource ds = (DataSource)envContext.lookup("jdbc/API");
    Connection conn = ds.getConnection();
      

More Tomcat Integration

The steps above show how to connect to ServiceDesk Plus data in a simple connection pooling scenario. For more use cases and information, see the JNDI Datasource How-To in the Tomcat documentation.

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from ServiceDesk Plus with the API Driver

Connect to ServiceDesk Plus