Connect to BambooHR Data in RapidMiner

This article shows how you can easily integrate the CData JDBC driver for BambooHR into your processes in RapidMiner. This article uses the CData JDBC Driver for BambooHR to transfer BambooHR data to a process in RapidMiner.

Connect to BambooHR in RapidMiner as a JDBC Data Source

You can follow the procedure below to establish a JDBC connection to BambooHR:

1. Add a new database driver for BambooHR: Click Connections -> Manage Database Drivers.
2. In the resulting wizard, click the Add button and enter a name for the connection.
3. Enter the prefix for the JDBC URL: jdbc:api:
4. Enter the path to the cdata.jdbc.api.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
5. Enter the driver class: cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver
6. Create a new BambooHR connection: Click Connections -> Manage Database Connections.
7. Enter a name for your connection.
8. For Database System, select the BambooHR driver you configured previously.
9. Enter your connection string in the Host box.

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

   BambooHR API Profile Settings

   In order to authenticate to BambooHR, you'll need to provide your API Key. To generate an API key, log in and click your name in the upper right-hand corner of any page to get to the user context menu. If you have sufficient permissions, there will be an "API Keys" option in that menu to go to the page, where you can create a new API Key. Additionally, you will need to set the Domain, found in the domain name of your BambooHR account. For example if your BambooHR account is acmeinc.bamboohr.com, then the Domain should be 'acmeinc'. Set both the API Key and Domain in the ProfileSettings property to connect.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.api.jar

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

   A typical connection string is below:

   Profile=C:\profiles\BambooHR.apip;ProfileSettings='Domain=acmeinc;APIKey=your_api_key';
10. Enter your username and password if necessary.

You can now use your BambooHR connection with the various RapidMiner operators in your process. To retrieve BambooHR data, drag the Retrieve operator from the Operators view. With the Retrieve operator selected, you can then define which table to retrieve in the Parameters view by clicking the folder icon next to the "repository entry." In the resulting Repository Browser, you can expand your connection node to select the desired example set.

Finally, wire the output to the Retrieve process to a result, and run the process to see the BambooHR data.