Import Real-Time Sage 300 Data in ColdFusion to Build Applications

Adobe ColdFusion is a web and mobile application development platform. It uses its own scripting language, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), to create data-driven websites as well as generate remote services, such as REST.

When ColdFusion is paired with the CData JDBC Driver for Sage 300, you can link your ColdFusion web and mobile applications to operational Sage 300 data. This allows for your applications to be more robust and complete. This article details how to use the JDBC driver to create a table populated with Sage 300 data from within a ColdFusion markup file.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData JDBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Sage 300 data. When you issue complex SQL queries to Sage 300, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Sage 300 and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations). Its built-in dynamic metadata querying allows you to work with and analyze Sage 300 data using native data types.

Configuring the Connection to Sage 300

You will need a JDBC connection string to establish a connection between Coldfusion and Sage 300.

Sage 300 requires some initial setup in order to communicate over the Sage 300 Web API.

• Set up the security groups for the Sage 300 user. Give the Sage 300 user access to the option under Security Groups (per each module required).
• Edit both web.config files in the /Online/Web and /Online/WebApi folders; change the key AllowWebApiAccessForAdmin to true. Restart the webAPI app-pool for the settings to take.
• Once the user access is configured, click https://server/Sage300WebApi/ to ensure access to the web API.

Authenticate to Sage 300 using Basic authentication.

Connect Using Basic Authentication

You must provide values for the following properties to successfully authenticate to Sage 300. Note that the provider reuses the session opened by Sage 300 using cookies. This means that your credentials are used only on the first request to open the session. After that, cookies returned from Sage 300 are used for authentication.

• Url: Set this to the url of the server hosting Sage 300. Construct a URL for the Sage 300 Web API as follows: {protocol}://{host-application-path}/v{version}/{tenant}/ For example, http://localhost/Sage300WebApi/v1.0/-/.
• User: Set this to the username of your account.
• Password: Set this to the password of your account.

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Sage 300 JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

Adding a Data Source and Creating a Table

After configuring the connection, follow the steps below to add the CData JDBC Driver to ColdFusion's lib directory, add a new data source, test the connection, create a ColdFusion markup file, and, finally, make a real-time connection with Sage 300 data and display it in a table written in the ColdFusion Markup Language, or CFML:

1. Copy the JDBC Driver for Sage 300 and lic file from "C:\Program Files\CData[product_name]\lib" to "C:\ColdFusion2021\cfusion\wwwroot\WEB-INF\lib". cdata.jdbc.sage300.jar cdata.jdbc.sage300.lic

   Note: If you do not copy the .lic file with the jar, you will see a licensing error that indicates you do not have a valid license installed. This is true for both the trial and full versions.

2. From the ColdFusion administrator interface, choose Data & Services.
3. Here, we can "Add New Data Source". The data source name can be any name, provided it conforms to the ColdFusion variable naming conventions. For our JDBC driver, choose "other", then click the "Add" button.
4. Next, populate the driver properties.
   • JDBC URL will need to be in the format: jdbc:sage300:|connectionString|.
   • A typical connection string looks like this:

     jdbc:sage300:User=SAMPLE;Password=password;URL=http://127.0.0.1/Sage300WebApi/v1/-/;Company=SAMINC;

   • The Driver Class is: cdata.jdbc.sage300.Sage300Driver
   • The Driver Name is arbitrary and simply used to recognize the data source in the ColdFusion administration console.
5. Now, test the connection by clicking the check mark to the left of the CDataSage 300JDBC data source you just created. When the data source reports an "OK" status, it is ready for use.
6. Next, create a new ColdFusion Markup file (.cfm) and place it in the wwwroot directory ("C:\ColdFusion2021\cfusion\wwwroot") for ColdFusion.

   The following code queries the data source:

               
           <cfquery name="Sage 300Query" dataSource="CDataSage 300JDBC"> 
             SELECT * FROM OEInvoices 
           </cfquery> 
       

   And a CFTable can be used to quickly output the table in HTML:

               
             <cftable  
             query = "Sage 300Query" 
             border = "1" 
             colHeaders 
             colSpacing = "2" 
             headerLines = "2" 
             HTMLTable 
             maxRows = "500" 
             startRow = "1"> 
   
             <cfcol header="<b>InvoiceUniquifier</b>" align="Left" width=2 text="InvoiceUniquifier"/> 
   
             <cfcol header="<b>ApprovedLimit</b>" align="Left" width=15 text="ApprovedLimit"/> 
   
             ...
   
           </cftable> 
       

   Full code, including the HTML portion is available below:

               
           <html> 
           <head><title>CData Software | Sage 300 OEInvoices Table Demo </title></head> 
           <body> 
           <cfoutput>#ucase("Sage 300 OEInvoices Table Demo")#</cfoutput> 
           <cfquery name="Sage 300Query" dataSource="CDataSage 300JDBC"> 
   
             SELECT * FROM OEInvoices 
   
           </cfquery> 
           <cftable  
             query = "Sage 300Query" 
             border = "1" 
             colHeaders 
             colSpacing = "2" 
             headerLines = "2" 
             HTMLTable 
             maxRows = "500" 
             startRow = "1"> 
             <cfcol header="<b>InvoiceUniquifier</b>" align="Left" width=2 text="InvoiceUniquifier"/> 
   
             <cfcol header="<b>ApprovedLimit</b>" align="Left" width=15 text="ApprovedLimit"/> 
   
             ...
   
           </cftable> 
           </body> 
   
           </html>  
       

7. Finally, run the code locally in a browser at the default port of 8500. It produces a table populated with Sage 300 data!

As a note, the CData JDBC Drivers also support parameterized queries using the cfqueryparam element. For example: SELECT * FROM Account WHERE name =

Get Started Today

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Sage 300 and start building Sage 300-connected applications with Adobe ColdFusion. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.