Connect to Printful Data in RapidMiner

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

Connect to Printful in RapidMiner as a JDBC Data Source

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

1. Add a new database driver for Printful: 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 Printful connection: Click Connections -> Manage Database Connections.
7. Enter a name for your connection.
8. For Database System, select the Printful 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 Printful Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Printful.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Printful (see below).

   Printful API Profile Settings

   In order to authenticate to Printful, you'll need to provide your API Key. To get your API Key, first go to 'Settings' then 'Stores'. Select the Store you would like to connect to, then click the 'Add API Access' button to generate an API Key. Set the API Key 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 Printful 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\Printful.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=my_api_key';
10. Enter your username and password if necessary.

You can now use your Printful connection with the various RapidMiner operators in your process. To retrieve Printful 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 Printful data.