How to connect to Airtable Data in DBVisualizer

The CData JDBC Driver for Airtable implements JDBC standards to provide connectivity to Airtable data in applications ranging from business intelligence tools to IDEs. This article shows how to establish a connection to Airtable data in DBVisualizer and use the table editor to edit and save Airtable data.

Create a New Driver Definition for Airtable Data

Follow the steps below to use the Driver Manager to provide connectivity to Airtable data from DBVisualizer tools.

1. In DBVisualizer, click Tools -> Driver Manager.
2. Click the plus sign "" to create a new driver.
3. Select "Custom" as the template.
4. On the Driver Settings tab:
   • Set Name to a user-friendly name (e.g. "CData Airtable Driver")
   • Set URL Format to jdbc:airtable:
   • In Driver artifacts and jar files (jars are loaded in order from top):
     1. Click the plus sign "" -> "Add Files"
     2. Navigate to the "lib" folder in the installation directory (C:\Program Files\CData[product_name] XXXX\)
     3. Select the JAR file (cdata.jdbc.Airtable.jar) and click "Open"
5. The Driver Class should populate automatically. If not, select class (cdata.jdbc.airtable.AirtableDriver).

Define the Connection to the JDBC Data Source

Close the "Driver Manager" and follow the steps below to save connection properties in the JDBC URL.

1. In the "Databases" tab, click the plus sign "" and select the driver you just created.

2. In the "Connection" section, set the following options:

   • Database Type: If you selected the wizard option, the database type is automatically detected. If you selected the "No Wizard" option, select the Generic or Auto Detect option in the Database Type menu.
   • Driver Type: Select the driver you just created.

   • Database URL: Enter the full JDBC URL. The syntax of the JDBC URL is jdbc:airtable: followed by the connection properties in a semicolon-separated list of name-value pairs.

     APIKey, BaseId and TableNames parameters are required to connect to Airtable. ViewNames is an optional parameter where views of the tables may be specified.

     • APIKey : API Key of your account. To obtain this value, after logging in go to Account. In API section click Generate API key.
     • BaseId : Id of your base. To obtain this value, it is in the same section as the APIKey. Click on Airtable API, or navigate to https://airtable.com/api and select a base. In the introduction section you can find "The ID of this base is appxxN2ftedc0nEG7."
     • TableNames : A comma separated list of table names for the selected base. These are the same names of tables as found in the UI.
     • ViewNames : A comma separated list of views in the format of (table.view) names. These are the same names of the views as found in the UI.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.airtable.jar

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

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

     A typical connection string is below:

     jdbc:airtable:APIKey=keymz3adb53RqsU;BaseId=appxxN2fe34r3rjdG7;TableNames=Table1,...;ViewNames=Table1.View1,...;
   • NOTE: Since Airtable does not require a User or Password to authenticate, you may use whatever values you wish for Database Userid and Database Password.
3. On the Connection tab, click Connect.

To browse through tables exposed by the Airtable JDBC Driver, right-click a table and click "Open in New Tab."

To execute SQL queries, use the SQL Commander tool: Click SQL Commander -> New SQL Commander. Select the Database Connection, Database, and Schema from the available menus.

See the "Supported SQL" chapter in the help documentation for more information on the supported SQL. See the "Data Model" chapter for table-specific information.

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