Using the Authorization url to get a token

Chris,

Thank you very much for replying to my post.


I believe I went through this tutorial a few days ago. I'll revisit it again and go through it slowly this time.

One of my concerns is that I want to be able to set this process up so I can have it run unattended at night without any user interaction. I'm hoping that my logic just needs to supply the right access codes (subscription ID, Client ID, Secret ID) without a User entering in their credentials.
Is this possible?


Thank you,

Thomas

Chris,

Thank you for the detailed info and the links. I will take a look at the "Headless data sync C#" example and check out the Postman tool.

My process would be in the context of ONE user and One Blackbaud environment. This process/app would only be for my organization.



I work for a non-profit foodbank. We use RaisersEdge NXT. I am tasked with getting data from RE/NXT download to on-premise SQL tables so we can develop custom reports and visuals for various staff members.


Currently we have staff members in our Development group exporting data out or RE/NXT to csv files that I import into our SQL tables nightly. I am hoping to automate this process using the Blackbaud API.

If you think this is the wrong approach or if there is another way to automate this, I'd love to hear about it.


Thank you,


Tom

Paul,

Thanks for replying to my post. I'm trying to fully understand the process of getting a "refresh" token and then using that to get an access token.

I'll be going over all the comments today and reading up on several of the suggestions. I think if I can get through one or two examples I'll be more comfortable with this process. Right now I feel a little lost.


Tom

Paul, thanks for comments. hope to do some testing this week after a long weekend.

Ben, thank you for the information. I'd be interested to see examples of Power Automate downloading data from both the Gift and Constituent tables based on a date range or anything that is newly added.

We have all the appropriate licenses for Power Automate, including the Premium for SQL Server. I already have a Gateway up and running. We've been using Power BI for reporting against SSAS tabular Cubes and regular SQL tables.

I downloaded the SkyLib.Net this morning and ran the demo program. So at the point I have a "refresh" token and a Basic Auth Credentials.

Not sure how to use the "refresh" token to get access now.


if you can share a screen shot or two of your Power Automate flow that would be great.


My typing is one-handed and slow this morning as i broke my collar bone yesterday (lucky me). If i don't get back to you its due to me resting to alleviate the pain)


Thank you

Thomas

Ben, thank you for the links. i did watch the videos from the times you suggested. it's still not fully clicking in my head.


I downloaded the SkyLib.net library and ran the demo program after inputting all the appropriate values.

I was able to use the Access token that SkyLib provided in my VB,Net code to also query the Constituent table.


Now I’m trying to run my own code to refresh the Access Token but I keep receiving the following message: “The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request System.


Below is three different code snippets in vb.net. all three receive the same error message that I listed above. If some can tell me what I’m doing wrong or what is it that I am missing, that would be great.



Dim callString As String

Dim Vol_list As String


ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Tls12


callString = "https://oauth2.sky.blackbaud.com/token?grant_type=authorization_code

&code=98bbe5bcc5f6426xxxxxxxx4791cd7&redirect_uri=https://www.philabundance.org"

Dim uri As New Uri(callString)


'make HTTP request

Dim Request As HttpWebRequest = HttpWebRequest.Create(uri)

Request.Headers.Add("client_id", "my client id data")

Request.Headers.Add("client_secret", "my client secret data")

Request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"

Request.ContentLength = 0


'get HTTP response


Dim Response As HttpWebResponse = Request.GetResponse


I also tried this code:


Dim callString As String

Dim Vol_list As String


ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Tls12


callString = "https://oauth2.sky.blackbaud.com/token?grant_type=authorization_code

&code=refresh token value &redirect_uri=https://www.philabundance.org"


Dim uri As New Uri(callString)


'make HTTP request

Dim Request As HttpWebRequest = HttpWebRequest.Create(uri)


Request.Method = "POST"


Request.Headers.Add("Authorization", "Basic NjYzZjk2ZDEtYzYzMS00ZTlkLWJhM2YtMThmMDAxOWY5NDY3OlJMbGIzK2ZEbDVZSXhrUllHQ3N0clBKVUdyMFBJRlduUm0wbjFBSk9CTGs9")

Request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"

Request.ContentLength = 0


'get HTTP response


Dim Response As HttpWebResponse = Request.GetResponse



I also tried this code:



Dim strResp As String = ""

Try

ServicePointManager.SecurityProtocol = SecurityProtocolType.Tls12


Dim grantType As String = "authorization_code"

Dim postData As String = "grant_type=refresh_token&client_id=663f96d1-c631-4e9d-ba3f-xxxxxxxxx

&client_secret=RLlb3+fDl5YIxkxxxxxxxxxPIFWnRm0n1AJOBLk=

&redirect_uri=https://www.philabundance.org

&code=98bbe5bcc5f6426e9c64xxxxxxxxxx"



Dim byteReq() As Byte = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(postData)

Dim objReq As WebRequest = WebRequest.Create("https://oauth2.sky.blackbaud.com/token")

objReq.Method = "POST"

objReq.ContentLength = byteReq.Length

objReq.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"

Dim OutStream As IO.Stream = objReq.GetRequestStream()

OutStream.Write(byteReq, 0, byteReq.Length)

OutStream.Close()


Dim objResp As WebResponse = objReq.GetResponse() 'This is where it keeps erroring out with a 400 response.


Dim sr As New IO.StreamReader(objResp.GetResponseStream(), Encoding.UTF8, True)

strResp = sr.ReadToEnd()

sr.Close()

objResp.GetResponseStream().Close()

objResp.Close()

Catch ex As System.Net.WebException

Throw New ArgumentException("Error SendRequest: " + ex.Message + " " + ex.Source)

End Try

Ben,

thank you for the screen shots (info) on using Power Automate. i ended up using the SkyLib.net library to get the appropriate refresh and access tokens whick I then store in a SQL Table. For my process I only need to run this once a night.

Immediately after getting the access token I have several SQL stored (built from vb.net CLR) that i can execute to retrieve data (ex: all new gifts added ) from our RaiserEdge NXT database in the cloud.

I will look at the Power Automate option as this may be helpful for other reporting needs.


Thomas