How to Connect DBeaver to Airtable via a JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for Airtable implements JDBC standards that enable third-party tools to interoperate, from wizards in IDEs to business intelligence tools. This article shows how to connect to Airtable data with wizards in DBeaver and browse data in the DBeaver GUI.

Create a JDBC Data Source for Airtable Data

Follow the steps below to load the driver JAR in DBeaver.

1. Open the DBeaver application and, in the "Database" menu, select the "Driver Manager" option. Click "New" to open the "Create new driver" form.
2. In the Settings tab:
   • Set Driver Name to a user-friendly name for the driver (e.g. CData JDBC Driver for Airtable).
   • Set Class Name to the class name for the JDBC driver: cdata.jdbc.airtable.AirtableDriver.
   • Set URL Template to jdbc:airtable:.
3. In the Libraries tab, click "Add File," navigate to the "lib" folder in the installation directory (C:\Program Files\CData[product_name] XXXX\) and select the JAR file (cdata.jdbc.Airtable.jar).

Create a Connection to Airtable Data

Follow the steps below to add credentials and other required connection properties.

1. In the "Database" menu, click "New Database Connection."
2. In the "Connect to a database" wizard that results, select the driver you just created (e.g. CData JDBC Driver for Airtable) and click "Next >."
3. On the Main tab of the configuration wizard, set the JDBC URL, using the required connection properties:

   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.

   Below is a typical connection string:

   jdbc:airtable:APIKey=keymz3adb53RqsU;BaseId=appxxN2fe34r3rjdG7;TableNames=Table1,...;ViewNames=Table1.View1,...;
4. Click "Test Connection ..." to ensure you have configured the connection properly.
5. Click "Finish."

Query Airtable Data

You can now query information from the tables exposed by the connection: Right-click a Table and then click View Table. The data is available on the Data tab.

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