How to connect to Smartsheet Data from Spring Boot

Connect to Smartsheet in a Spring Boot Application using CData JDBC Smartsheet Driver

Spring Boot is a framework that makes engineering Java web applications easier. It offers the ability to create standalone applications with minimal configuration. When paired with the CData JDBC driver for Smartsheet, Spring Boot can work with live Smartsheet data. This article shows how to configure data sources and retrieve data in your Java Spring Boot Application, using the CData JDBC Driver for Smartsheet.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData JDBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Smartsheet data. When you issue complex SQL queries to Smartsheet, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Smartsheet and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations). Its built-in dynamic metadata querying allows you to work with and analyze Smartsheet data using native data types.

About Smartsheet Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Smartsheet. Customers use CData connectivity to:

Read and write attachments, columns, comments and discussions.
View the data in individuals cells, report on cell history, and more.
Perform Smartsheet-specific actions like deleting or downloading attachments, creating, copying, deleting, or moving sheets, and moving or copying rows to another sheet.

Users frequently integrate Smartsheet with analytics tools such as Tableau, Crystal Reports, and Excel. Others leverage our tools to replicate Smartsheet data to databases or data warehouses.

Getting Started

Creating the Spring Boot Project in Java

In an IDE (in this tutorial, we use IntelliJ), choose a Maven project: In the generated project, go to the pom.xml file, and add the required dependencies for Spring Boot:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<parent>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
<version>2.7.2</version>
<relativePath/>
</parent>
<groupId>com.example</groupId>
<artifactId>demo</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<name>demo</name>
<description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>
<properties>
<java.version>1.8</java.version>
</properties>
<build>
<plugins>
	<plugin>
		<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
		<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
	</plugin>

	<plugin>
		<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
		<artifactId>maven-install-plugin</artifactId>
		<version>2.5.1</version>
		<executions>
			<execution>
				<id>id.install-file</id>
				<phase>clean</phase>
				<goals>
					<goal>install-file</goal>
				</goals>
				<configuration>
					<file>C:\Program Files\CData[product_name] ####\lib\cdata.jdbc.smartsheet.jar</file>
					<groupId>org.cdata.connectors</groupId>
					<artifactId>cdata-smartsheet-connector</artifactId>
					<version>23</version>
					<packaging>jar</packaging>
				</configuration>
			</execution>
		</executions>
	</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>

<dependencies>
<dependency>
	<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
	<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
	<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
	<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-jdbc</artifactId>
	<version>2.7.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
	<groupId>org.cdata.connectors</groupId>
	<artifactId>cdata-smartsheet-connector</artifactId>
	<version>23</version>
</dependency>

<dependency>
	<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
	<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
	<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>



<distributionManagement>
<repository>
	<uniqueVersion>false</uniqueVersion>
	<id>test</id>
	<name>My Repository</name>
	<url>scp://repo/maven2</url>
	<layout>default</layout>
</repository>
</distributionManagement>

</project>

Note: The year (####) and the version number (as seen in the provided XML script) should be adjusted according to the current version of the CData JDBC driver being utilized.

Project Structure

In the java directory, create a new package. Usually the name of the package is the name of the groupId (com.example) followed by the artifactId (.MDS).

Mark the "java" directory as the "Sources Root" (denoted by a blue color). To do this, right-click the java directory and choose Mark Directory as -> Sources Root (As shown below). Additionally, mark the "resources" directory as the "Resources Root."

Store Database Connection Properties

Create an "application.properties" file to store the database connection properties. To do this, right-click on the "resources" folder, opt for New -> File, input the file name as "application.properties," and press Enter.

In the application.properties file, we set the configuration properties for the Smartsheet JDBC Driver, using the Class name and JDBC URL:


	spring.datasource.driver=cdata.jdbc.smartsheet.SmartsheetDriver
	spring.datasource.url=jdbc:smartsheet:OAuthClientId=MyOauthClientId;OAuthClientSecret=MyOAuthClientSecret;CallbackURL=http://localhost:33333;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Smartsheet JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.


java -jar cdata.jdbc.smartsheet.jar

Smartsheet uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to register an app to obtain the OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL connection properties.

However, for testing purposes you can instead use the Personal Access Token you get when you create an application; set this to the OAuthAccessToken connection property.

Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)

After setting the properties in the application.properties file, we now configure them.

Data Source Configuration

First, we mark the Smartsheet data source as our primary data source. Then, we create a Data Source Bean.

Create a DriverManagerDataSource.java file and create a Bean within it, as shown below. If @Bean gives an error, Spring Boot may not have loaded properly. To fix this, go to File -> Invalidate Caches and restart. Additionally, make sure that Maven has added the Spring Boot dependencies.

To create a data source bean, we use the DriverManagerDataSource Class. This class allows us to set the properties of the data source. To create this Java class, right-click on "com.example.MDS" package, and choose New -> Java Class.

The following code shows the bean definition of our data source. Each driver should have a bean.


import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.boot.jdbc.DataSourceBuilder;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Primary;
import org.springframework.core.env.Environment;
import javax.sql.DataSource;

public class DriverManagerDataSource{
	@Autowired
	private static Environment env;

	@Bean(name ="Smartsheet")
	@Primary
	public static DataSource SmartsheetDataSource()
	{

	DataSourceBuilder<?> dataSourceBuilder = DataSourceBuilder.create();
		dataSourceBuilder.driverClassName("cdata.jdbc.smartsheet.SmartsheetDriver");
		dataSourceBuilder.url("jdbc:smartsheet:OAuthClientId=MyOauthClientId;OAuthClientSecret=MyOAuthClientSecret;CallbackURL=http://localhost:33333;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH");
		return dataSourceBuilder.build();
	}
	
	//@Override
	public void setEnvironment( final Environment environment) {
	env=environment;
	}
}

Next, move the Smartsheet jar file to the Documents folder (see path in command below) - The idea is to have a path without any spaces for the jar file. Then, click the Maven icon (top right corner of IntelliJ) and click "Execute Maven Goal." Now, run the following command:


mvn install:install-file "-Dfile=C:\Program Files\CData[product_name] ####\lib\cdata.jdbc.smartsheet.jar" -DgroupId=org.cdata.connectors -DartifactId=cdata-smartsheet-connector -Dversion=23 -Dpackaging=jar

Follow either of the given steps to run this command:

The "-Dfile location" can be kept as the default installation path of the CData JDBC Driver. Make sure to keep the path in quotations in this case. Also, change the year and "Dversion" based on the current version of the driver being used.
As mentioned earlier in the article, in case you relocate the jar file to the Documents folder, make sure to modify the path in the provided command. In such instances, avoid enclosing the Dfile location in quotations and edit "Dversion" based on the current version of the driver being used.

After pressing enter, we see the following output:

Testing the Connection

The last step is testing the connection. Create a new Java class following the format (e.g., "MDSApplication"). You have the flexibility to select any name for the application class. We call the data source in the main method of MDSApplication.java:


import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.jdbc.DataSourceAutoConfiguration;
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import static com.example.demo.DriverManagerDataSources.SmartsheetDataSource;


@SpringBootApplication(exclude = {DataSourceAutoConfiguration.class})
	public class MDSApplication {
		//remove the comment on the line below
		public static void main (){
		SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args);
		Connection conn = SmartsheetDataSource().getConnection();
		System.out.println("Catalog: "+ conn.getCatalog());
	}
}

The output generated should look like this:

Free Trial & More Information

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Smartsheet JDBC Driver

Easy-to-use Smartsheet client enables Java-based applications to easily consume Smartsheet Sheets, Contacts, Folders, Groups, Users, etc.

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