How to connect PolyBase to Typeform

PolyBase for SQL Server allows you to query external data by using the same Transact-SQL syntax used to query a database table. When paired with the CData API Driver for ODBC, you get access to your Typeform data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live Typeform data using T-SQL queries.

NOTE: PolyBase is only available on SQL Server 19 and above, and only for Standard SQL Server.

The CData ODBC drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Typeform data using PolyBase due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from SQL Server to Typeform, the driver pushes down supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Typeform and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. And with PolyBase, you can also join SQL Server data with Typeform data, using a single query to pull data from distributed sources.

Connect to Typeform

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. To create an external data source in SQL Server using PolyBase, configure a System DSN (CData Typeform Sys is created automatically).

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the TypeForm Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\TypeForm.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for TypeForm (see below).

TypeForm API Profile Settings

Authentication to TypeForm uses the OAuth standard.

To authenticate to TypeForm, you must first register and configure an OAuth application with TypeForm here: https://admin.typeform.com/account#/section/tokens. Your app will be assigned a client ID and a client secret which can be set in the connection string. More information on setting up an OAuth application can be found at https://developer.typeform.com/get-started/.

Note that there are several different use scenarios which all require different redirect URIs:

• CData Desktop Applications: CData desktop applications (Sync, API Server, ArcESB) accept OAuth tokens at /src/oauthCallback.rst. The host and port is the same as the default port used by the application. For example, if you use http://localhost:8019/ to access CData Sync then the redirect URI will be http://localhost:8019/src/oauthCallback.rst.
• CData Cloud Applications: CData cloud applications are similar to their desktop counterparts. If you access Connect Cloud at https://1.2.3.4/ then you should use the redirect https://1.2.3.4/src/oauthCallback.rst.
• Desktop Application: When using a desktop application, the URI https://localhost:33333 is recommended.
• Web Application: When developing a web application using the driver, use your own URI here such as https://my-website.com/oauth.

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

• AuthScheme: Set this to OAuth.
• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to manage the process to obtain the OAuthAccessToken.
• OAuthClientId: Set this to the Client Id that is specified in your app settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to Client Secret that is specified in your app settings.
• CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI you specified in your app settings.

Click "Test Connection" to ensure that the DSN is connected to Typeform properly. Navigate to the Tables tab to review the table definitions for Typeform.

Create an External Data Source for Typeform Data

After configuring the connection, you need to create a master encryption key and a credential database for the external data source.

Creating a Master Encryption Key

Execute the following SQL command to create a new master key, 'ENCRYPTION,' to encrypt the credentials for the external data source.

CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'password';

Creating a Credential Database

Execute the following SQL command to create credentials for the external data source connected to Typeform data.

NOTE: Since Typeform does not require a User or Password to authenticate, you may use whatever values you wish for IDENTITY and SECRET.

CREATE DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIAL api_creds
WITH IDENTITY = 'username', SECRET = 'password';

Create an External Data Source for Typeform

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE SQL command to create an external data source for Typeform with PolyBase:

• Set the LOCATION parameter , using the DSN and credentials configured earlier.

For Typeform, set SERVERNAME to the URL or address for your server (e.g. 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1' for local servers; the remote URL for remote servers). Leave PORT empty. PUSHDOWN is set to ON by default, meaning the ODBC Driver can leverage server-side processing for complex queries.

CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE cdata_api_source
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'odbc://SERVER_URL',
  CONNECTION_OPTIONS = 'DSN=CData Typeform Sys',
  -- PUSHDOWN = ON | OFF,
  CREDENTIAL = api_creds
);

Create External Tables for Typeform

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to Typeform data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by the CData API Driver for ODBC. You can refer to the Tables tab of the DSN Configuration Wizard to see the table definition.

Sample CREATE TABLE Statement

The statement to create an external table based on a Typeform Tags would look similar to the following:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE Tags(
  Id [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  Title [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='Tags',
  DATA_SOURCE=cdata_api_source
);

Having created external tables for Typeform in your SQL Server instance, you are now able to query local and remote data simultaneously. Thanks to built-in query processing in the CData ODBC Driver, you know that as much query processing as possible is being pushed to Typeform, freeing up local resources and computing power. Download a free, 30-day trial of the ODBC Driver for Typeform and start working with live Typeform data alongside your SQL Server data today.