How to connect PolyBase to Asana

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 ODBC Driver for Asana, you get access to your Asana data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live Asana 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 Asana data using PolyBase due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from SQL Server to Asana, the driver pushes down supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Asana 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 Asana data, using a single query to pull data from distributed sources.

Connect to Asana

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 Asana Sys is created automatically).

You can optionally set the following to refine the data returned from Asana.

• WorkspaceId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Workspace to only return projects from the specified workspace. To get your workspace id, navigate to https://app.asana.com/api/1.0/workspaces while logged into Asana. This displays a JSON object containing your workspace name and Id.
• ProjectId: Set this to the globally unique identifier (gid) associated with your Asana Project to only return data mapped under the specified project. Project IDs can be found in the URL of your project's Overview page. This will be the numbers directly after /0/.

Connect Using OAuth Authentication

You must use OAuth to authenticate with Asana. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Asana using the browser. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

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

Create an External Data Source for Asana 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 Asana data.

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

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

Create an External Data Source for Asana

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

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

For Asana, 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_asana_source
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'odbc://SERVER_URL',
  CONNECTION_OPTIONS = 'DSN=CData Asana Sys',
  -- PUSHDOWN = ON | OFF,
  CREDENTIAL = asana_creds
);

Create External Tables for Asana

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to Asana data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by the CData ODBC Driver for Asana. 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 Asana projects would look similar to the following:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE projects(
  Id [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  WorkspaceId [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='projects',
  DATA_SOURCE=cdata_asana_source
);

Having created external tables for Asana 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 Asana, freeing up local resources and computing power. Download a free, 30-day trial of the ODBC Driver for Asana and start working with live Asana data alongside your SQL Server data today.