How to Set up Connections Programmatically

Use Case

You want to programmatically create connections at scale without using the Fivetran dashboard.

The following are the most common use cases:

• Powered by Fivetran
• Enterprise: Different Business Units

Recommendations

Our REST API is a crucial aspect of limiting manual work for setting up dozens or hundreds of connections.

Before you begin, make sure you have a group and destination set up and a Scoped API key. See REST API Quickstart Guide for the full prerequisite sequence and how to find your group_id and connector service identifier.

Once your group and destination are ready, you can begin creating connections using Connection Management.

Process

1. Find the connector type you want to sync. Use GET /v1/metadata/connectors to look up the internal service identifier for your connector, then review its config fields in the Connection Config reference.

2. In the request body of the Create a Connection endpoint, replace the config field with the specific connection’s config from Step 1.

3. Change the payload parameters in the request body to the service and group_id.

4. Send a POST request to the Create a Connection endpoint.

5. Validate that the new connection has been created successfully. Check that you've received the correct HTTP 201 response from Fivetran’s REST API.

6. (Optional) Send a PATCH request to the Update a Connection endpoint to make additional changes to any of the following:

   • Sync frequency
   • Daily sync time
   • Schedule type (auto or manual)
   • Authentication
   • Config parameters

7. Repeat Steps 1 through 5 to set up additional sources.

Considerations

• Our REST API is available only for Free, Standard, Enterprise, and Business Critical accounts.

• Powered by Fivetran customers can leverage this process programmatically to implement a smooth customer onboarding process for all of your SaaS applications or databases. See our Powered by Fivetran Quickstart Guide and Powered by Fivetran Detailed Guide for details.