BigCommerce

Connection Dialog

Devart Excel Add-ins allow you to connect to BigCommerce using BigCommerce API v2 or API v3. Note that BigCommerce API v3 does not support all the BigCommerce objects. Even if you use APIVersion.v3 in your connection, access to some objects is still performed via API v2. Besides the lists of objects and their structure is different for BigCommerce API v2 and API v3. The main differences are connected with objects, storing data about products, their variants, options, prices, brands, etc.

The main connection dialog box allows you to select the API version to use.

API v2

For API v2, Devart Excel Add-ins uses Basic authentication, which requires the following parameters:

1.	Host - The API Path - the path where all XML requests to BigCommerce should be sent;

2.	User Id - The user name to login with;

3.	Authentication Token - An automatically generated key that is used for connecting to BigCommerce;

To get the Host, User Id, and Authentication Token parameters, sign in to BigCommerce in the browser, point to the Settings link in the bottom left corner of the page, and then in the Advanced Settings column click the Legacy API Settings link. After this, you can find all the necessary parameters in the opened Legacy API Account Details. Copy the Username parameter to the User Id box, API Path parameter to the Host box, and API Token parameter to the Authentication Token box.

In addition to the required options, Advanced connection options may be set for more fine connection tuning.

API v3

For API v3, Devart Excel Add-ins uses OAuth authentication, which requires the following parameters:

Store Id - the store hash from the API Path. For example, when you log in to your BigCommerce store Control Panel, an URL, similar to the following, opens in your browser: https://store-kj3jh4c.mybigcommerce.com/manage/dashboard . The part of the URL, highlighted with bold, is the store Id required.

2.	Client Id - Client Id of your API account.

3.	Access Token - the OAuth access token to login with.

Client Id and Access Token can be obtained only when creating an API account in BigCommerce. So, if you don't have these parameters, you need to create a new API account. For this, sign in to your BigCommerce Control Panel, and click Advanced Settings in the menu on the left, then click API Accounts. Create a new API account - specify the account name and configure the list of scopes it can access. Then, when saving the API account, the required parameters are displayed. It's not possible to view these parameters for an already created account, so better save them somewhere for future use.

Advanced Connection Options

The following table describes the options that you can include in the Connection String using the Advanced Connection Editor dialog box:

Option	Description
Access Token	Specifies an automatically generated key that is used for connecting to BigCommerce using OAuth authentication. See BigCommerce documentation for more information on how to get it.
API Version	Specifies the version of BigCommerce API to use - API v2 or v3. Note that BigCommerce API v3 does not support all the BigCommerce objects. Even if you use APIVersion.v3 in your connection, access to some objects is still performed via API v2. Besides the lists of objects and their structure is different for BigCommerce API v2 and API v3. The main differences are connected with objects, storing data about products, their variants, options, prices, brands, etc.
Authentication Token	Specifies an automatically generated key that is used for connecting to BigCommerce using basic authentication. See BigCommerce documentation for more information on how to get it.
Authentication Type	Determines whether to use legacy Basic-Auth credentials or OAuth tokens for authentication.
Client Id	Specifies a unique ID of a BigCommerce client application. Used only for OAuth authentication. See BigCommerce documentation for more information on how to get it.
Connection Lifetime	Specifies the time span (in seconds), compared against a connection's creation time when it is returned to the pool; the connection is destroyed if this span is exceeded. The default value is 0 (connection always returns to pool).
Connection Timeout	Specifies the length of time (in seconds) to wait for a connection to the server before terminating the attempt and generating an error. The default value is 60.
Default Command Timeout	Specifies the time in seconds to wait while trying to execute a command before terminating the attempt and generating an error.
Failover Retries	Specifies the number of retry attempts to automatically re-run a command before displaying an error message in case when the command failed because of an error that may be temporary.
Initialization Command	Specifies a command to execute after establishing the connection.
Local SQL Engine	Determines whether to use local SQL engine for SELECT queries, that are too complex to translate them directly to BigCommerce API calls or to show an error message.
Max Pool Size	Specifies the maximum number of connections allowed in the pool. Setting the Max Pool Size value in the connection string can affect performance. The default value is 100.
Min Pool Size	Specifies the minimum number of connections allowed in the pool. The default value is 0.
NormalizeDbNames	Determines whether database object names are normalized when retrieved from the database.
Persist Security Info	Indicates if security-sensitive information, such as the password, is not returned as part of the connection if the connection is open or has ever been in an open state.
Pooling	Draws the connection from the appropriate pool, or creates and adds it to the appropriate pool, when set to true. This is the default behavior.
Proxy Host	Specifies the host name or IP address of the proxy server.
Proxy Password	Specifies the password for the proxy server account.
Proxy Port	Specifies the port number of the proxy server. The default value is 3128.
Proxy User	Specifies the proxy server account name.
Readonly	Indicates whether the connection is read-only (allows only SELECT statements).
Run Once Command	Specifies a command to execute after establishing the connection. Unlike Initialization Command, it is not executed for connections obtained from the connection pool.
Server	Specifies the API Path - the path where all XML requests to BigCommerce should be sent.
Store Dates	Determines whether to treat date values as dates in the BigCommerce store timezone. Please note that the UTC Dates parameter has a higher priority, and if it is set to True, date values are treated as UTC dates regardless of the Store Dates value.
Store Id	Specifies the store hash from the API Path. For example, when you log in to your BigCommerce store Control Panel, an URL, similar to the following, opens in your browser: https://store-kj3jh4c.mybigcommerce.com/manage/dashboard . The part of the URL, highlighted with bold, is the store Id required. Used only for OAuth authentication.
Token Server	Is not used for BigCommerce.
Use Custom Fields	Determines whether you will be able to get product custom fields via the CustomFields field of the Products object through this connection. Applicable only for BigCommerce API v3 connections. If set to True, this field returns a JSON array, containing information about custom fields and their values for products, if such are available. Otherwise, it always returns null values. This parameter does not affect working with custom fields for customers and customer addresses, and it also does not affect access to product custom fields via the ProductCustomFields object. Please note that processing custom fields may take an additional time and API calls, so it's recommended to set this parameter to True only if you need to work with product custom fields via this connection.
User ID	Specifies the BigCommerce user name to login with. Used only for basic authentication.
UTC Dates	Converts dates to UTC format during import when set to True; the date values entered in Excel are then considered UTC dates when saving them to the data source.