Connect to Epicor Kinetic Data from Filemaker Pro (Mac)

FileMaker Pro is a cross-platform relational database application that allows users to visually modify a database. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, FileMaker Pro gets access to live Epicor Kinetic data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Epicor Kinetic using Connect Cloud and query Epicor Kinetic data in FileMaker Pro.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server interface for Epicor Kinetic, allowing you to query data from Epicor Kinetic without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Epicor Kinetic, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Epicor Kinetic data quickly.

Configure Epicor Kinetic Connectivity for FileMaker Pro

Connectivity to Epicor Kinetic from FileMaker Pro is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Epicor Kinetic data from FileMaker Pro, we start by creating and configuring a Epicor Kinetic connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Epicor Kinetic" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Epicor Kinetic.

   To successfully connect to your ERP instance, you must specify the following connection properties:

   • Url:the URL of the server hosting your ERP instance. For example, https://myserver.EpicorSaaS.com
   • ERPInstance: the name of your ERP instance.
   • User: the username of your account.
   • Password: the password of your account.
   • Service: the service you want to retrieve data from. For example, BaqSvc.

   In addition, you may also set the optional connection properties:

   • ApiKey: An optional key that may be required for connection to some services depending on your account configuration.
   • ApiVersion: Defaults to v1. May be set to v2 to use the newer Epicor API.
   • Company: Required if you set the ApiVersion to v2.
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Epicor Kinetic Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

Connect to Epicor Kinetic from FileMaker Pro using Connect Cloud

To establish a connection from FileMaker Pro to the CData Connect Cloud Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

Configure the ODBC Connection to CData Connect Cloud

1. Download and install the Actual ODBC Driver for SQL Server (actualtech.com)
2. Configure a DSN for the Actual ODBC driver by setting the following properties:
   • URL: tds.cdata.com
   • Port: Change the port from 1433 to 14333
   • Username: Your Connect Cloud email address
   • Password: the PAT you created earlier

Query Epicor Kinetic from FileMaker Pro

1. In the SQL Query Builder "SELECT" tab, select the columns to include as part of the query.
2. Open the "WHERE" tab of the SQL Query Builder and select "Show only selected columns."
3. In "Table.Column,"" select a table and a column name.
4. Set the "Operator" to =.
5. Select "Column," and then select the same table and column name as "Table.Column."
6. Click "Insert into SQL Query."
7. If no other modifications to the SQL query are required, click "Execute."

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