This tutorial describes how to connect to SugarCRM.

In this walkthrough:

• Requirements
• General information
• Creating SugarConnection
• Opening connection
• Closing connection
• Modifying connection

Requirements

In order to connect to SugarCRM you need to have the corresponding account, dotConnect for SugarCRM installed and IDE running. You also have to know the required connection parameters described below.

Note that if you do not use design-time (specifically, if you do not place designer SugarConnection component from the Toolbox to the form), you have to embed licensing information manually. This is described in topic Licensing.

Required Connection Parameters

To establish a connection to server you have to provide the required connection parameters to dotConnect for SugarCRM. This information is used by SugarConnection component to connect to SugarCRM. The parameters are represented as a connection string. You can compose the connection string manually or have dotConnect for SugarCRM construct it for you.

The following connection string parameters are required:

• Host - The login URL to the SugarCRM service;
• User Id - The SugarCRM login account;
• Password - The password for the SugarCRM login account;

Creating a Connection to SugarCRM

Design time creation

The following assumes that you have IDE running, and you are currently focused on a form designer.

1. Open Toolbox and find SugarConnection component in dotConnect for SugarCRM category.
2. Double-click the component. Notice that new object appears on the designer underneath the form. If this is first time you create the SugarConnection in this application it is named sugarConnection1.
3. Click on the sugarConnection1 object and press F4 to focus on object's properties.
4. Enter the required connection string parameters, described above, to the corresponding boxes.
5. Notice that as you assign values to these properties the ConnectionString property is automatically updated to reflect your settings. Now it contains something like "server=https://your_company.sugaropencloud.eu;user id=admin;password=AmFFA4ZryM;".
6. If necessary, click the Advanced button and configure other connection string parameters. You can find the description of these connection string parameters in the SugarConnection.ConnectionString topic.

Run time creation

You can also configure a connection at run-time by setting its ConnectionString property (note that you have to add references to Devart.Data.Sugar.dll, Devart.Data.SqlShim.dll, and Devart.Data.dll assemblies):

sugarConnection1.ConnectionString = "server=https://your_company.sugaropencloud.eu;user id=admin;password=AmFFA4ZryM;";

sugarConnection1.ConnectionString = "server=https://your_company.sugaropencloud.eu;user id=admin;password=AmFFA4ZryM;"

Using connection string builder

If you decide to setup connection by assigning values to several properties, consider using SugarConnectionStringBuilder class. It has all of the possible connection settings exposed as properties, thus allowing to customize the connection at full extent.

SugarConnectionStringBuilder connectionStringBuilder = new SugarConnectionStringBuilder();

connectionStringBuilder.Server = "https://your_company.sugaropencloud.eu";
connectionStringBuilder.UserId = "admin";
connectionStringBuilder.Password = "AmFFA4ZryM";

SugarConnection myConnection = new SugarConnection(connectionStringBuilder.ConnectionString);

Dim connectionStringBuilder As SugarConnectionStringBuilder = New SugarConnectionStringBuilder

connectionStringBuilder.Server = "https://your_company.sugaropencloud.eu"
connectionStringBuilder.UserId = "admin"
connectionStringBuilder.Password = "AmFFA4ZryM"

Dim myConnection As SugarConnection = New SugarConnection(connectionStringBuilder.ConnectionString)

Notice that in this example we used SugarConnection constructor that accepts connection string as argument.

For the information on arguments allowed in the connection string, refer to the description of the SugarConnection.ConnectionString property.

Creating Connection in Server Explorer

To create a Server Explorer connection, you just need to:

1. Click Connect to Database on the Server Explorer toolbar
   
   
2. If the SugarCRM Data Source is not selected by default, click the Change button.
3. Select SugarCRM Data Source (dotConnect for SugarCRM) and click OK.
4. Specify the URL to connect to, your user id and password.

After this you can browse SugarCRM objects in Server Explorer.

Opening connection

Opening a connection is as simple as that:

myConnection1.Open();

myConnection1.Open()

Of course, the myConnection1 object must have a valid connection string assigned earlier. When you call Open, dotConnect for SugarCRM tries to find the host and connect to SugarCRM. If any problem occurs it raises an exception with brief explanation on what is wrong. If no problem is encountered dotConnect for SugarCRM tries to establish the connection during ConnectionTimeout interval. Finally, when connection is established, the Open method returns and State property is changed to Open.

In design time you can connect to server in few steps:

1. Right-click on the connection object in designer and then click Connect.
2. In the dialog window provide the required connection parameters.
3. Click on the connection object and press F4 to focus on object's properties.
4. If necessary, click the Advanced button and configure other connection string parameters. You can find the description of these connection string parameters in the SugarConnection.ConnectionString topic.
5. Click Connect to establish connection.

Or you can simply change the State property to Open in the Properties window to establish a connection using the current connection string.

Closing connection

To close a connection call its Close method, or set its State property to Closed.

The following example summarizes aforementioned information and shows how to create, setup, open, use and then close the connection.

SugarConnection myConn = new SugarConnection();
myConn.ConnectionString = "server=https://your_company.sugaropencloud.eu;user id=admin;password=AmFFA4ZryM;";
myConn.Open();
MessageBox.Show(myConn.ServerVersion);
myConn.Close();

Dim myConn As SugarConnection = New SugarConnection()
myConn.ConnectionString = "server=https://your_company.sugaropencloud.eu;user id=admin;password=AmFFA4ZryM;"
myConn.Open()
MessageBox.Show(myConn.ServerVersion)
myConn.Close()

The sample code connects to server, shows its version and then closes the connection. This actually is a rare usage, because in real applications connections are used by other objects like SugarCommand, SugarDataReader and others. For more information on this please see corresponding tutorials or reference information.

Modifying Connection

You can modify connection by changing properties of SugarConnection object. Keep in mind that while some of the properties can be altered freely, most of them close connection when new value is assigned.