Create Yahoo! Ads-Connected Nintex Workflows

Nintex Workflow Cloud is a cloud-based platform where you can design workflows to automate simple or complex processes using drag-and-drop interactions — without writing any code. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Yahoo! Ads data for business applications. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Yahoo! Ads in Connect Cloud and build a simple workflow from Yahoo! Ads data in Nintex.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure, cloud-to-cloud interface for Yahoo! Ads, allowing you to build workflows from live Yahoo! Ads data in Nintex Workflow Cloud — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Nintex allows you to access data directly using SQL queries. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Yahoo! Ads, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Yahoo! Ads data.

Configure Yahoo! Ads Connectivity for Nintex

Connectivity to Yahoo! Ads from Nintex is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Yahoo! Ads data from Nintex, we start by creating and configuring a Yahoo! Ads connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Yahoo! Ads" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Yahoo! Ads.

   Authenticating with Yahoo! Ads

   Yahoo! Ads supports OAuth authentication. To authenticate with Yahoo! Ads, set the following connection properties:

   • (Optional) Enter the Search Ads Account Id. If left blank, this defaults to the Authenticated user's primary account.
   • (Optional) Enter the Display Ads Account Id. If left blank, this defaults to the Authenticated user's primary account.

   Click Sign in to connect securely through OAuth. This action opens the Yahoo! Ads sign-in page in a new tab.

   Log in to your Yahoo! Ads account and provide the requested permissions (if applicable).

   
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Yahoo! Ads Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

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.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your 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, you are ready to connect to Yahoo! Ads data from Nintex Workflow Cloud.

Connect to Yahoo! Ads from Nintex

The steps below outline creating a new connection to Yahoo! Ads data from Nintex (via Connect Cloud).

1. Log into Nintex Workflow Cloud
2. In the Connections tab, click "Add new"
3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the connector and click "Connect"
4. In the SQL Server connection wizard, set the following properties:
   • Connection Name: a Connect Cloud
   • Username: a Connect Cloud username (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Password: the Connect Cloud user's PAT
   • Database Host: tds.cdata.com
   • Database Name: the Yahoo! Ads connection (a.g., YahooAds1)
   
5. Click "Connect"
6. Configure the connection permissions and click "Save permissions"

Create a Simple Yahoo! Ads Workflow

With the connection to CData Connect Cloud configured, we are ready to build a simple workflow to access Yahoo! Ads data. Start by clicking the "Create workflow" button.

Configure the Start Event Action

1. Click the start event task and select the "Form" event
2. Click "Design form"
3. Drag a "Text - Long" element onto the Form and click the element to configure it
   • Set "Title" to "Enter SQL query"
   • Set "Required" to true
4. Drag a "Text - Short" element onto the Form and click the element to configure it
   • Set "Title" to "Enter desired result column"
   • Set "Required" to true

Configure an "Execute a Query" Action

1. Add an "Execute a query" action after the "Start event: Form" action and click to configure the action
2. Set "SQL Script" to the "Enter SQL Query" variable from the "Start event" action
3. Set "Column to retrieve" to the "Enter desired result column" variable from the "Start event" action
4. Set "Retrieved column" to a new variable (a.g., "values")

Configure a "Send an Email" Action

1. Add a "Send an email" action after the "Execute a query" action and click to configure the action
2. Set the "Recipient email address"
3. Set the "Subject"
4. Set the "Message body" to the variable created for the retrieved column

Once you configure the actions, click "Save," name the Workflow, and click "Save" again. You now have a simple workflow that will query Yahoo! Ads using SQL and sand an email with the results.

To learn more about live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, check out the CData Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.