How to create Clio federated tables in MySQL

You can use the SQL Gateway to configure a MySQL remoting service and set up federated tables for Clio data. The service is a daemon process that provides a MySQL interface to the CData ODBC Driver for Clio: After you have started the service, you can create a server and tables using the FEDERATED Storage Engine in MySQL. You can then work with Clio data just as you would local MySQL tables.

Connect to Clio Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

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

Clio API Profile Settings

Clio uses OAuth-based authentication.

First, register an OAuth application with Clio. You can do so by logging to your Developer Account and clicking the Add button. Enter details and select the scope of your application here - these details will be shown to Clio users when they're asked to authorize your application. Your Oauth application will be assigned a client id (key) and a client secret (secret). Additionally you will need to set the Region in ProfileSettings connection property.

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 you app settings.
• OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the client_secret that is specified in you app settings.
• CallbackURL: Set this to the Redirect URI that is specified in your app settings.
• Region: Set this in ProfileSettings to your Clio geographic region. Defaults to app.clio.com.

Configure the SQL Gateway

See the SQL Gateway Overview to set up connectivity to Clio data as a virtual MySQL database. You will configure a MySQL remoting service that listens for MySQL requests from clients. The service can be configured in the SQL Gateway UI.

Create a FEDERATED Server and Tables for Clio Data

After you have configured and started the service, create a FEDERATED server to simplify the process of creating FEDERATED tables:

Create a FEDERATED Server

The following statement will create a FEDERATED server based on the ODBC Driver for Clio. Note that the username and password of the FEDERATED server must match a user account you defined on the Users tab of the SQL Gateway.

CREATE SERVER fedAPI
FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER mysql
OPTIONS (USER 'sql_gateway_user', PASSWORD 'sql_gateway_passwd', HOST 'sql_gateway_host', PORT ####, DATABASE 'CData API Sys');

Create a FEDERATED Table

To create a FEDERATED table using our newly created server, use the CONNECTION keyword and pass the name of the FEDERATED server and the remote table (Bills). Refer to the following template for the statement to create a FEDERATED table:

CREATE TABLE fed_bills (
  ...,
  id  TYPE(LEN),
  total  TYPE(LEN),
  ...,
)
ENGINE=FEDERATED
DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
CONNECTION='fedAPI/bills';

NOTE: The table schema for the FEDERATED table must match the remote table schema exactly. You can always connect directly to the MySQL remoting service using any MySQL client and run a SHOW CREATE TABLE query to get the table schema.

Execute Queries

You can now execute queries to the Clio FEDERATED tables from any tool that can connect to MySQL, which is particularly useful if you need to JOIN data from a local table with data from Clio. Refer to the following example:

SELECT 
  fed_bills.id, 
  local_table.custom_field 
FROM 
  local_table 
JOIN 
  fed_bills 
ON 
  local_table.foreign_id = fed_bills.id;