Connect to Airtable Data in Airbyte ELT Pipelines

Airbyte empowers users to load your data into any data warehouse, data lake, or database. When combined with CData Connect AI, Airbyte users can create Extract, Load, Transform (ELT) pipelines directly from live Airtable data. This article illustrates the process of connecting to Airtable through Connect AI and constructing ELT pipelines for Airtable data within Airbyte.

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated SQL Server interface for Airtable, facilitating data querying without the need for data replication to a native database. With built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, straight to Airtable. This harnesses server-side processing to swiftly retrieve the desired Airtable data.

Configure Airtable Connectivity for Airbyte

Connectivity to Airtable from Airbyte is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Airtable data from Airbyte, we start by creating and configuring a Airtable connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Airtable" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Airtable.

   APIKey, BaseId and TableNames parameters are required to connect to Airtable. ViewNames is an optional parameter where views of the tables may be specified.

   • APIKey : API Key of your account. To obtain this value, after logging in go to Account. In API section click Generate API key.
   • BaseId : Id of your base. To obtain this value, it is in the same section as the APIKey. Click on Airtable API, or navigate to https://airtable.com/api and select a base. In the introduction section you can find "The ID of this base is appxxN2ftedc0nEG7."
   • TableNames : A comma separated list of table names for the selected base. These are the same names of tables as found in the UI.
   • ViewNames : A comma separated list of views in the format of (table.view) names. These are the same names of the views as found in the UI.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Airtable Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Airtable data from Airbyte.

Connect to Airtable from Airbyte

To establish a connection from Airbyte to CData Connect AI, follow these steps.

1. Log in to your Airbyte account
2. On the left panel, click Sources, then Add New Source
   • Set Source Type to MSSQL Server to connect the TDS endpoint
   • Set Source Name
   • Set Host URL to tds.cdata.com
   • Set Port to 14333
   • Set Database to the name of the connection you previously configured, e.g. Airtable1.
   • Set Username to your Connect AI username
   • Set SSL Method to Encrypted (trust server certificate), leave the Replication Method as standard, and set SSH Tunnel Method to No Tunnel
   • (Optional) Set Schema to anything you want to apply to the source
   • Set Password to your Connect AI PAT
   • (Optional) Enter any needed JBDC URL Params
3. Click Test and Save to create the data source.

Create ELT Pipelines for Airtable Data

To connect Airtable data with a new destination, click Sources and then Set Up Connection to connect to your destination. Select the source created above and your desired destination, then allow Airbyte to process. When it is done, your connection is ready for use.

Get CData Connect AI

To get live data access to 300+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from Airbyte, try CData Connect AI today!