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Get the Report →Connect to Live Quickbase Data in PostGresSQL Interface through CData Connect Cloud
Create a live connection to Quickbase in CData Connect Cloud and connect to your Quickbase data from PostgreSQL.
There are a vast number of PostgreSQL clients available on the Internet. PostgreSQL is a popular interface for data access. When you pair PostgreSQL with CData Connect Cloud, you gain database-like access to live Quickbase data from PostgreSQL. In this article, we walk through the process of connecting to Quickbase data in Connect Cloud and establishing a connection between Connect Cloud and PostgreSQL using a TDS foreign data wrapper (FDW).
CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server interface for Quickbase, allowing you to query data from Quickbase 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 Quickbase, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Quickbase data quickly.
Connect to Quickbase in Connect Cloud
CData Connect Cloud uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.
- Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
- Select "Quickbase" from the Add Connection panel
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Quickbase.
User Authentication Method
To authenticate with user credentials, specify the following connection properties:
- Set the User and Password.
- If your application requires an ApplicationToken;, you must provide it otherwise an error will be thrown. You can find the ApplicationToken under SpecificApp > Settings > App management > App properties > Advanced settings > Security options > Manage Application Token.
User Token Authentication
To authenticate with a user token, specify the following connection properties:
- Set UserToken and you are ready to connect. You can find the UserToken under Quick Base > My Preferences > My User Information > Manage User Tokens.
- Click Create & Test
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Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Quickbase Connection page and update the User-based permissions.
![Adding a Connection Adding a Connection](../articles/cloud-setup-1.png)
![Selecting a data source Selecting a data source](../articles/cloud-setup-2.png)
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.
- Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
- On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
- Give your PAT a name and click Create.
- The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.
![Creating a new PAT Creating a new PAT](../articles/cloud-setup-8.png)
Build the TDS Foreign Data Wrapper
The Foreign Data Wrapper can be installed as an extension to PostgreSQL, without recompiling PostgreSQL. The tds_fdw extension is used as an example (https://github.com/tds-fdw/tds_fdw).
- You can clone and build the git repository via something like the following view source:
sudo apt-get install git git clone https://github.com/tds-fdw/tds_fdw.git cd tds_fdw make USE_PGXS=1 sudo make USE_PGXS=1 install
Note: If you have several PostgreSQL versions and you do not want to build for the default one, first locate where the binary for pg_config is, take note of the full path, and then append PG_CONFIG=after USE_PGXS=1 at the make commands. - After you finish the installation, then start the server:
sudo service postgresql start
- Then go inside the Postgres database
psql -h localhost -U postgres -d postgres
Note: Instead of localhost you can put the IP where your PostgreSQL is hosted.
Connect to Quickbase data as a PostgreSQL Database and query the data!
After you have installed the extension, follow the steps below to start executing queries to Quickbase data:
- Log into your database.
- Load the extension for the database:
CREATE EXTENSION tds_fdw;
- Create a server object for Quickbase data:
CREATE SERVER "QuickBase1" FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER tds_fdw OPTIONS (servername'tds.cdata.com', port '14333', database 'QuickBase1');
- Configure user mapping with your email and Personal Access Token from your Connect Cloud account:
CREATE USER MAPPING for postgres SERVER "QuickBase1" OPTIONS (username 'username@cdata.com', password 'your_personal_access_token' );
- Create the local schema:
CREATE SCHEMA "QuickBase1";
- Create a foreign table in your local database:
#Using a table_name definition: CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "QuickBase1".SampleTable_1 ( id varchar, Column1 varchar) SERVER "QuickBase1" OPTIONS(table_name 'QuickBase.SampleTable_1', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all'); #Or using a schema_name and table_name definition: CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "QuickBase1".SampleTable_1 ( id varchar, Column1 varchar) SERVER "QuickBase1" OPTIONS (schema_name 'QuickBase', table_name 'SampleTable_1', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all'); #Or using a query definition: CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "QuickBase1".SampleTable_1 ( id varchar, Column1 varchar) SERVER "QuickBase1" OPTIONS (query 'SELECT * FROM QuickBase.SampleTable_1', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all'); #Or setting a remote column name: CREATE FOREIGN TABLE "QuickBase1".SampleTable_1 ( id varchar, col2 varchar OPTIONS (column_name 'Column1')) SERVER "QuickBase1" OPTIONS (schema_name 'QuickBase', table_name 'SampleTable_1', row_estimate_method 'showplan_all');
- You can now execute read/write commands to Quickbase:
SELECT id, Column1 FROM "QuickBase1".SampleTable_1;
More Information & Free Trial
Now, you have created a simple query from live Quickbase data. For more information on connecting to Quickbase (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Quickbase data in PostgreSQL.