Query Adobe Target Data through ODBC in Node.js

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript code outside of a browser. With the CData ODBC Driver for Adobe Target, you can access live Adobe Target data from Node.js apps and scripts. In this article, we walk through installing node-odbc and the required tools to create a simple Node.js app with access to live Adobe Target data.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Adobe Target data in Node.js. When you issue complex SQL queries from Node.js to Adobe Target, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Adobe Target and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Adobe Target 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.

To connect to Adobe Target, you must provide the Tenant property along with OAuth connection properties mentioned below. Note that while other connection properties can influence processing behavior, they do not affect the ability to connect.

To determine your Tenant name:

1. Log in to Adobe Experience. The URL will look similar to: "https://experience.adobe.com/#/@mycompanyname/preferences/general-section".
2. Extract the value after the "/#/@". In this example, it is "mycompanyname".
3. Set the Tenant connection property to that value.

User Accounts (OAuth)

You must set AuthScheme to OAuthClient for all user account flows.

Note: Adobe authentication via OAuth requires updating your token every two weeks.

All Applications

Obtaining the OAuth Access Token

Set the following properties to connect:

• InitiateOAuth: Set to GETANDREFRESH to automatically perform the OAuth exchange and refresh the OAuthAccessToken as needed.
• OAuthClientId : Set to the client Id assigned when you registered your app.
• OAuthClientSecret : Set to the client secret assigned when you registered your app.
• CallbackURL : Set to the redirect URI defined when you registered your app. For example: https://localhost:3333

With these settings, the provider obtains an access token from Adobe Target, which it uses to request data. The OAuth values are stored in the location specified by OAuthSettingsLocation, ensuring they persist across connections.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Adobe Target through the CData ODBC Driver, you need to build node-odbc manually (after installing the required tools).

Installing the Required Tools

The following commands install the tools required to build node-odbc (note the -g parameter, which installs the tools globally).

npm i -g windows-build-tools
npm i -g node-gyp

Building node-odbc

After installing the required tools, create a directory for the Node.js app and install odbc (which builds the binary for us to use in our Node.js script).

mkdir nodeodbc
cd nodeodbc
npm i -g node

Querying Adobe Target from Node.js

With the ODBC Driver installed, a DSN Configured, and node-odbc built, we are ready to query live Adobe Target data from a Node.js app. The sample code below connects to a specific DSN and queries the Activities table.

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryAdobeTarget() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData AdobeTarget Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT Id, Name FROM Activities');
    console.log(data);
}

queryAdobeTarget();

Once you write the app, use node to execute the script:

node myscript.js

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for Adobe Target and start working with your live Adobe Target data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.