Configure the Data Source Connection¶
Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation
Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation
After you install the Salesforce OCF connector, you must configure the connection to the data source.
The various steps involved in configuring the Salesforce data source connection setting are:
Provide Access¶
To set the data source visibility, go to the Access tab on the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, set the data source visibility using these options:
Public Data Source — The data source is visible to all users of the catalog.
Private Data Source — The data source is visible to the users allowed access to the data source by Data Source Admins.
You can add new Data Source Admin users in the Data Source Admins section.
Connect to Data Source¶
To establish the a connection to data source, you must:
Provide the JDBC URI¶
Provide the JDBC URI in the JDBC URI field of Connector Settings section of General Settings tab.
Use the following format:
salesforce://user=username;
Note
You can provide the parameter values in the individual fields in the Connector Settings section (preferred). However, the value of a parameter configured in the JDBC URI takes precedence over the same parameter configured in the corresponding field in the Connector Settings section.
JDBC URI Format OAuth Authentication in Compose¶
Use the following format of the JDBC URI for OAuth authentication in Compose:
salesforce://Authscheme=OAuth;
Configure Authentication¶
For metadata extraction (MDE), profiling and sampling, and query log ingestion (QLI), the connector supports Basic and OAuth authentication.
Note
Salesforce OCF connector doesn’t support SSL authentication. Skip the SSL section the General Settings tab.
Note
If you want the driver to automatically select the authentication type based the connection properties you have set, select Auto from the Auth Scheme drop down from the Authentication section of General Settings tab.
Configure Basic Authentication¶
On the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, go to the General Settings tab.
In the Connector Settings section, go to the Authentication section.
Select Basic from the Auth Scheme drop down.
Provide the following details .
Field
Description
User
Specify the service account username.
Password
Specify the service account password.
Security Token
Specify the security token used to authenticate access to the Salesforce account.
Use Sandbox
Select this checkbox if you want to establish a connection to a Salesforce sandbox account.
Note
For more information on how to retrieve a security token, see Security Token.
Click Save.
If you choose to encrypt using SSL, configure SSL. For details, see Configure SSL Authentication .
Configure SSL Authentication¶
On the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, go to the General Settings tab.
In the Authentication section, select Encrypt.
In the Connector Settings section, provide the following details in the SSL section.
Field
Description
SSL Client Cert
Specify the SSL client certificate store for SSL Client Authentication. for the client certificate.
SSL Client Cert Type
The type of key store containing the SSL client certificate.
SSL Client Cert Password
Specify the password used to decrypt the certificate in SSL client certificate.
SSL Client Cert Subject
Specify the subject of the SSL client certificate.
SSL Server Cert
Specify the certificate that Alation must accept from the server to connect using TLS/SSL. Specify the full certificate.
Important
SSL Server Certificate isn’t supported. If you use server certificate for connection, contact Alation Support.
Click Save.
Configure OAuth Authentication¶
Before configuring OAuth authentication in Alation user interface, ensure that you have completed all the steps mentioned in the Configure OAuth Using Client Credentials Workflow section of Prerequisites.
On the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, go to the General Settings tab.
In the Connector Settings section, go to the Authentication section.
Select OAuth Client Credentials from the Auth Type drop down.
Select the OAuth profile that you created (see the Configure OAuth Using Client Credentials Workflow section of Prerequisites) from the Authentication Profiles drop down.
Click Save.
You can skip all the other fields under the Authentication section.
Configure API Information¶
Specify the information related to Salesforce API for connection.
Configure API Connection¶
To configure the API connection, perform these steps:
On the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, go to the General Settings tab.
In the Connection section, provide the following information:
Parameter
Description
API Version
Specify the Salesforce API version to use.
Login URL
Specify the Salesforce server URL to log in .
Configure Bulk API¶
To configure the Bulk API settings, perform these steps:
On the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, go to the General Settings tab.
In the BulkAPI section, provide the following information:
Parameter
Description
Use Bulk API
Select to choose asynchronous bulk API. Default is synchronous SOAP API.
Bulk API Concurrency Mode
Select the concurrency mode for processing bulk rows with Bulk API v1.
Bulk Polling Interval
Specify the time interval in milliseconds between requests that check the availability of the bulk query response. Default is 500 milliseconds.
Bulk Query Timeout
Specify the timeout in minutes for which the provider will wait for bulk query response. Default is 25 seconds.
Wait For Bulk Results
Select to wait for bulk results when using asynchronous bulk API.
Configure Tooling API¶
To configure the Tooling API settings, perform these steps:
On the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, go to the General Settings tab.
In the ToolingAPI section, select Use Tooling API to use the Salesforce Tooling API for connection.
Configure Firewall Connection¶
To configure the firewall connection, perform these steps:
On the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, go to the General Settings tab.
In the Firewall section, provide the following information:
Field
Description
Firewall Type
Specify the protocol to be used by a proxy-based firewall. - NONE
TUNNEL — Indicates that the driver opens a connection to Salesforce, and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy. The default port is 80.
SOCKS4 - Indicates that the driver sends data through the SOCKS 4 proxy specified by the Firewall Server and Firewall Port and passes the user value to the proxy, determining whether to grant the connection request. The default port is 1080.
SOCKS5 — Indicates that the driver sends data through the SOCKS 5 proxy specified by Firewall Server and Firewall Port. The default port is 1080.
Firewall Port
Specify the TCP port for a proxy-based firewall.
Firewall User
Specify a username to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall.
Firewall Password
Specify a password used to authenticate to a proxy-based firewall.
Click Save.
Configure Proxy Settings¶
To configure the proxy settings, perform these steps:
On the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, go to the General Settings tab.
In the Proxy section, provide the following information:
Field
Description
Proxy Auto Detect
Select the Proxy Auto Detect check box to use the system proxy settings. This parameter takes precedence over other proxy settings. Therefore, clear the Proxy Auto Detect checkbox to use custom proxy settings.
Proxy Server
Specify a proxy server’s hostname or IP address to route HTTP traffic through. By default, Alation uses the system proxy. To use another proxy, clear the Proxy Auto Detect checkbox.
Proxy Port
Specify the TCP port on which the Proxy server runs.
Proxy Auth Scheme
Specify the authentication type to authenticate to the Proxy Server proxy. BASIC — Indicates HTTP BASIC authentication.
DIGEST — Indicates HTTP DIGEST authentication.
NEGOTIATE - Uses an NTLM or Kerberos token based on the applicable protocol for authentication.
PROPRIETARY — Does not generate an NTLM or Kerberos token. You must supply this token in the Authorization header of the HTTP request.
Proxy User
Specify a user name to use to authenticate. to the Proxy Server proxy.
Proxy Password
Specify a password to use to authenticate to the Proxy Server proxy.
Proxy SSL Type
Specify the SSL type to use when connecting to the Proxy Server proxy.
AUTO — Indicates that if the URL is an HTTPS URL, the connection uses the TUNNEL. option. If the URL is an HTTP URL, the component uses the NEVER option.
- ALWAYS — Indicates that the connection
is always SSL enabled.
- NEVER — Indicates that the connection is
not SSL enabled.
TUNNEL — Indicates that the connection is through a tunneling proxy. The proxy server opens a connection to the remote host and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy.
Click Save.
Configure Logging¶
To set the logging level for your Salesforce data source logs, perform these steps:
On the Settings page of your data source, go to Logging section of General Settings tab.
Select a logging level for the connector logs and click Save.
The available log levels are based on the Log4j framework.
You can view the connector logs in Admin Settings > Server Admin > Manage Connectors > Salesforce OCF connector.
Configure Schema Properties¶
To configure schema properties, perform these steps:
On the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, go to the General Settings tab.
In the Schema section, provide the following information:
Parameter
Description
Browsable Schemas
Specify the schemas as a subset of the available schemas in a comma-separated list. For example, BrowsableSchemas=SchemaA,SchemaB,SchemaC.
Tables
Specify the fully qualified name of the table as a subset of the available tables in a comma-separated list.
Each table must be a valid SQL identifier that might contain special characters escaped using square brackets, double quotes, or backticks. For example, Tables=TableA,[TableB/WithSlash],WithCatalog.WithSchema.`TableC With Space`.
Views
Specify the fully qualified name of the Views as a subset of the available tables in a comma-separated list.
Each view must be a valid SQL identifier that might contain special characters escaped using square brackets, double quotes, or backticks. For example, Views=ViewA,[ViewB/WithSlash],WithCatalog.WithSchema.`ViewC With Space`.
Configure Additional Connection Settings¶
Apart from the mandatory configurations that you perform to connect to the data source on the General Settings tab, configure the following additional settings:
Configure Additional Data Source Connections¶
Alation can associate objects in a data source with objects in another source in the catalog through lineage. For example, you can show lineage between your data source and BI sources that use its data.
Provide additional connection information for the data source to see lineage across multiple sources on the Lineage chart.
On the Application Settings section of General Settings tab, provide the host and port information in the Additional data source connection field.
This parameter is used to generate lineage between the current data source and another source in the catalog, for example a BI source that retrieves data from the underlying database. The parameter accepts host and port information of the corresponding BI data source connection.
For more details, see Configure Cross-Source Lineage.
Enable or Disable Automatic Lineage Generation¶
You can enable or disable the lineage for the data source to be generated automatically during metadata extraction, query log ingestion, and from Data Definition Language queries run by users in Compose.
Go to General Settings > Advanced settings of the Settings page of your Salesforce data source and enable or disable the Disable automatic lineage generation toggle.
Disable the Disable automatic lineage generation toggle when you want to automatically generate the lineage.
Enable this option when you do not want lineage to be automatically generated and prefer to create lineage manually or using an API.
By default, automatic lineage generation is enabled.
Configure Miscellaneous Settings¶
On the Settings page of your Salesforce data source, go to the General Settings tab.
In the Misc section, provide the following details:
Parameter
Description
All Or None
Select to fail all inserts, updates, and deletes in case even a single record fails.
Archive Mode
Select to include deleted and archived records with a standard SELECT query.
Connection LifeTime
The maximum lifetime of a connection in seconds. Once the time has elapsed, the connection object is disposed.
The default is 0, indicating no limit to the connection lifetime.
Continue On Alter Exception
Select this checkbox to continue after an ALTER statement failure.
Expose Conceptual Entities
Select this checkbox to display the Salesforce record types or conceptual entities as tables.
Filter Scope
Select the scope to limit the records returned from queries.
Include Metadata Description
Set this property to a value other than NONE to retrieve the descriptions for columns, tables, or both from the Metadata API.
NONE — Executes extra API calls for a value other than NONE.
Columns — Retrieves the descriptions for every column from the Metadata API.
Tables — Retrieves the descriptions for every table from the Metadata API.
- TablesAndColumns — Retrieves the descriptions for every table and their
respective columns from the Metadata API
Include Reports
Select the checkbox to include Salesforce records as Views.
Max Rows
Specify the limit to the number of rows returned when no aggregation or GROUP BY is used in the query. This takes precedence over LIMIT clauses.
Other
Specify the properties used for specific use cases.
Pool Idle Timeout
Specify the allowed idle time for a connection before it is closed. The default value is 60 seconds.
Pool Max Size
Specify the maximum connections in the pool. The default is 100.
Pool Min Size
Specify the minimum number of connections in the pool. The default is 1.
Pool Wait Time
Specify the maximum seconds to wait for an available connection. The default value is 60 seconds.
Pseudo Columns
Specify whether or not to include pseudo columns as columns to the table.
Query Passthrough
Select this checkbox to accept SOQL queries.
Read only
Select this checkbox to enforce read-only access to Salesforce from the provider.
Remove BOM Character
Select this checkbox to remove BOM character (char) from the content
Replace Invalid UTF8 Chars
Select this checkbox to replace invalid UTF8 characters with
?.Server Side Aggregation
Select this checkbox to use server side aggregation.
Session Timeout
Specify the time in minutes for which a Salesforce login session is reused.
Skip Formula Fields
Select this checkbox to skip formula fields when listing columns.
Sort Columns
Select this checkbox to sort table columns instead of reporting them in Salesforce order.
Timeout
Specify the value in seconds until the timeout error is thrown, canceling the operation.
Use Connection Pooling
Select this checkbox to enable connection pooling.
Use Display Names
Select this checkbox to display the names for columns instead of API names
User Defined Views
Specify the file path pointing to the JSON configuration file containing your custom views.
Click Save.
Disable Obfuscate Literals¶
You can hide literal values from queries ingested with query log ingestion and displayed on the Queries tab of a schema and table catalog objects.
Go to General Settings > Obfuscate Literals of the Settings page of your Salesforce data source and disable the Obfuscate literals toggle.
When enabled, literal values are substituted with placeholder values. Disable this option when you want literal values in queries to be visible to users.
By default, this option is disabled.
Test the Connection¶
The connection test checks database connectivity. Alation uses the JDBC URI to connect to the database and to confirm when the connection is established.
After specifying the JDBC URI and configuring authentication, test the connection.
To validate the network connectivity, go to General Settings > Test Connection of the Settings page of your Salesforce data source and click Test.
A dialog box appears confirming the status of the connection test.