Authorizing Azure Data Factory to SKY API

Ayush Venkatesh

Attempting to set up the SKY API as a Linked Service in Azure Data Factory, but receive a connection failure; error indicates it fails to get access token from SKY API's token endpoint (see message failure here):

Error code: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/connector-troubleshoot-guide#error-code-getoauth2accesstokenerrorresponse

Details: Failed to get access token from your token endpoint. Error returned from your authorization server: {"error":"unauthorized_client","error_description":"The value specified for the grant_type parameter 'client_credentials' is not valid for the application."}.
Processed HTTP request failed.

What other configurations should I make to ensure I can successfully authentication & connect to the SKY API in Azure Data Factory? Here is a screenshot of the Linked Service configurations (sensitive information blurred for security purposes):

Note also the following details:

• Blackbaud SKY API application is setup
• Redirect URLS are as follows: https://localhost:5001/auth/callback, https://oauth.pstmn.io/v1/browser-callback
• Environment ID is already mapped to the SKY API Application

Roman Rozanov

@Ayush Venkatesh
Were you able to get the connection working ?

Ashley Moose

Hi @Ayush Venkatesh and @Roman Rozanov - I recently researched setting up this connection in the Azure Data Factory and found it will not work as this configuration is looking for a grant type of ‘client_credentials', which would allow authorization without an intermediate user granting authorization, but the SKY API Authorization only support the grant type of ‘authorization_code', which does not support the system-to-sytem authorization that the ‘client_credentials’ grant type allows.

I did find a couple of articles at the time that may provide a workaround option for setting up authorization within Azure Data Factory. I emphasize the may though as I don't have access to Azure to test this myself so cannot provide additional input or answer questions if you run into any issues here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1524759/extract-data-from-rest-api-w-oauth2-authorization

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-au/answers/questions/2134662/how-to-create-a-link-service-in-azure-data-factory

Additionally, you could build a custom, standalone application to support the authentication - as further documented in our SKY Developer documentation: https://developer.blackbaud.com/skyapi/docs/authorization/auth-code-flow/confidential-application

Lastly, I would also suggest voting on the following Idea and leaving the specific feedback about the Azure Data Factory so this can be tracked and potentially implemented in the future. https://blackbaud-developer.ideas.aha.io/ideas/API-I-283