ETL TaxJar in Oracle Data Integrator

Leverage existing skills by using the JDBC standard to read and write to TaxJar: Through drop-in integration into ETL tools like Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), the CData JDBC Driver for TaxJar connects real-time TaxJar data to your data warehouse, business intelligence, and Big Data technologies.

JDBC connectivity enables you to work with TaxJar just as you would any other database in ODI. As with an RDBMS, you can use the driver to connect directly to the TaxJar APIs in real time instead of working with flat files.

This article walks through a JDBC-based ETL -- TaxJar to Oracle. After reverse engineering a data model of TaxJar entities, you will create a mapping and select a data loading strategy -- since the driver supports SQL-92, this last step can easily be accomplished by selecting the built-in SQL to SQL Loading Knowledge Module.

Install the Driver

To install the driver, copy the driver JAR and .lic file, located in the installation folder, into the ODI appropriate directory:

• UNIX/Linux without Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib
• UNIX/Linux with Agent: $ODI_HOME/odi/agent/lib
• Windows without Agent: %APPDATA%\Roaming\odi\oracledi\userlib
• Windows with Agent: %APPDATA%\Roaming\odi\agent\lib

Restart ODI to complete the installation.

Reverse Engineer a Model

Reverse engineering the model retrieves metadata about the driver's relational view of TaxJar data. After reverse engineering, you can query real-time TaxJar data and create mappings based on TaxJar tables.

1. In ODI, connect to your repository and click New -> Model and Topology Objects.
2. On the Model screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
   • Name: Enter TaxJar.
   • Technology: Select Generic SQL (for ODI Version 12.2+, select Microsoft SQL Server).
   • Logical Schema: Enter TaxJar.
   • Context: Select Global.
3. On the Data Server screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
   • Name: Enter TaxJar.
   • Driver List: Select Oracle JDBC Driver.
   • Driver: Enter cdata.jdbc.taxjar.TaxJarDriver
   • URL: Enter the JDBC URL containing the connection string.

     To authenticate to the TaxJar API, you will need to first obtain the API Key from the TaxJar UI.

     NOTE: the API is available only for Professional and Premium TaxJar plans.

     If you already have a Professional or Premium plan you can find the API Key by logging in the TaxJar UI and navigating to Account -> TaxJar API. After obtaining the API Key, you can set it in the APIKey connection property.

     Additional Notes

     • By default, the CData connector will retrieve data of the last 3 months in cases where the entity support date range filtering. You can set StartDate to specify the minimum creation date of the data retrieved.
     • If the API Key has been created for a sandbox API account please set UseSandbox to true, but not all endpoints will work as expected. For more information, refer to the TaxJar developer documentation.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.taxjar.jar

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

     Below is a typical connection string:

     jdbc:taxjar:APIKey=3bb04218ef8t80efdf1739abf7257144;
4. On the Physical Schema screen, enter the following information:
   • Name: Select from the Drop Down menu.
   • Database (Catalog): Enter CData.
   • Owner (Schema): If you select a Schema for TaxJar, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter TaxJar.
   • Database (Work Catalog): Enter CData.
   • Owner (Work Schema): If you select a Schema for TaxJar, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter TaxJar.
5. In the opened model click Reverse Engineer to retrieve the metadata for TaxJar tables.

Edit and Save TaxJar Data

After reverse engineering you can now work with TaxJar data in ODI. To edit and save TaxJar data, expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator, right-click a table, and click Data. Click Refresh to pick up any changes to the data. Click Save Changes when you are finished making changes.

Create an ETL Project

Follow the steps below to create an ETL from TaxJar. You will load Orders entities into the sample data warehouse included in the ODI Getting Started VM.

1. Open SQL Developer and connect to your Oracle database. Right-click the node for your database in the Connections pane and click new SQL Worksheet.

   Alternatively you can use SQLPlus. From a command prompt enter the following:

   sqlplus / as sysdba
2. Enter the following query to create a new target table in the sample data warehouse, which is in the ODI_DEMO schema. The following query defines a few columns that match the Orders table in TaxJar: CREATE TABLE ODI_DEMO.TRG_ORDERS (USERID NUMBER(20,0),TransactionID VARCHAR2(255));
3. In ODI expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator and double-click the Sales Administration node in the ODI_DEMO folder. The model is opened in the Model Editor.
4. Click Reverse Engineer. The TRG_ORDERS table is added to the model.
5. Right-click the Mappings node in your project and click New Mapping. Enter a name for the mapping and clear the Create Empty Dataset option. The Mapping Editor is displayed.
6. Drag the TRG_ORDERS table from the Sales Administration model onto the mapping.
7. Drag the Orders table from the TaxJar model onto the mapping.
8. Click the source connector point and drag to the target connector point. The Attribute Matching dialog is displayed. For this example, use the default options. The target expressions are then displayed in the properties for the target columns.
9. Open the Physical tab of the Mapping Editor and click ORDERS_AP in TARGET_GROUP.
10. In the ORDERS_AP properties, select LKM SQL to SQL (Built-In) on the Loading Knowledge Module tab.

You can then run the mapping to load TaxJar data into Oracle.