Deta Base

Important: This connector and its actions have been removed from Nintex Automation Cloud and can now be found in Nintex Gallery.

Deta Base is a free cloud-based data store. It is a fully-managed, fast, scalable and secure NoSQL database with a focus on end-user simplicity. In the context of Nintex Automation Cloud, Deta Base is a connector Service used to define a connection required for associated actions and start events. Examples include Salesforce and Box. Method of integration to cloud services, business applications and content stores.. For more information on Deta Base see the company website.

The Deta Base connector Service used to define a connection required for associated actions and start events. Examples include Salesforce and Box. Method of integration to cloud services, business applications and content stores. is used to create connections for Deta Base actions A tool for building the processes, logic, and direction within workflows.. Use the Deta Base actions to store and retrieve strings in a Deta base. Create, update, delete, and retrieve data items in/from a simple base or a structured object (schema) that is dynamically read from Deta Base. Then use the Nintex Automation Cloud Integration action, Query JSON, to extract and use JSON data from those strings.

Important: Use the Nintex Automation Cloud Integration action, Query JSON, to extract and use JSON data from connector actions.

Create a Deta Base connection

Create a connection from the connections page or from the action configuration panel when configuring the action. For information about creating connections and assigning permissions, see Manage connections.

Complete the following fields when creating the connection:

In this field

Select or enter the following

Connection name A name for your new connection.
Project Key The key generated by Deta Base, specific to a project.
Project ID The ID generated by Deta Base, specific to a project.

Deta Base account requirements

  • The account you use to create a connection for Deta Base is the account that has access to the Deta Base actions.
  • You must create a project in Deta Base and store the Project ID and Project key that Deta Base generates. The Project ID and Key are used to create the Deta Base connection in Nintex Automation Cloud. All bases belong to a project, to interact with bases in a project you must create a connector for that project.

Important: 

The project key and ID are only shown once in Deta Base. You must use the ID and key for a specific Deta Base project to create a connection to that project.

Create a Deta Base data source

Use the Deta Base data source to create a drop-down list of Deta Base data items.

For more information on creating a data source and assigning permissions to it, see Data sources.

For example, to allow users to select a specific property value from schema data or an item's data from a data/JSON item in a form, add a drop-down list of data or schema items to the form using a Data lookup form control A form control that allows users to select from a drop-down list of values that have been fetched from a third-party service.. The Data lookup form control uses a Deta Base - Get schema items or Deta Base - Get data/JSON items data source to list the items available in a Deta Base base in the drop-down.

You can create a Deta Base data source to:

  • Get data/JSON items: list all the data/JSON items in a Deta base.
  • Get schema items: list all the schema items in a Deta base.

Each data source is configured for a specific project base. You can create as many data sources as you need.

Create a Deta Base drop-down list

To add a Deta Base drop-down list to your form:

  1. Create your Deta Base data source.
  2. See Data sources.

  3. Add a data lookup form control to your form and configure it to use your new data source.

Deta Base data source fields

When you create a Deta Base data source, you can configure some additional fields to specify which items the data source should retrieve.

To access the data source fields, in the Add data source section, select Deta Base in the Connector field and then select the Operation.

The following configuration fields are displayed depending on the operation selected.

Operation

Field/Selection

Description

Deta Base - Get data/JSON items Connection The connection to use for the data source.
  Base name The name of the database.
  Items per page The number of items to retrieve per page. Only this number of items are returned.
  • When used with the Last item key field, you can specify which page of items to retrieve. For example, imagine there are 100 items in the base and you set the Items per page to 10 but leave the Last item key field empty. The first 10 items will be retrieved. If you put the tenth item's key into the Last item key field, the next 10 items are retrieved.
  •   Last item key The last data/JSON item's key from the previous page of items.
    Deta Base - Get schema items: Connection The connection to use for the data source.
      Base name The name of the database.
      Items per page The number of items to retrieve per page. Only this number of items are returned. When used with the Last item key field, you can specify which page of items to retrieve. For example, imagine there are 100 items in the base and you set the Items per page to 10 but leave the Last item key field empty. The first 10 items will be retrieved. If you put the tenth item's key into the Last item key field, the next 10 items are retrieved.
      Last item key The last data/JSON item's key from the previous page of items.

    Considerations when creating a Deta Base data source

    Note: 

    The images below are examples taken from Deta Base. For information on Deta Base like how to create a base, see the Deta Base documentation.

    • Deta treats data as a string. You must ensure that JSON data you put into Deta Base is well-formed JSON to be able to use retrieved data in workflows.
    • The Deta Base data/JSON actions interact with standard Deta bases which contain only a key and a data column.

    • To use Deta Base schema actions with Nintex Automation Cloud, you must first have a base called ntx-schema set up in Deta Base. The ntx-schema base must consist of a key column and a column for a schema object. Each base that you want to interact with using schema actions in Nintex Automation Cloud must have an entry in the ntx-schema base.
    • The ntx-schema key field must be the base name and the schema object must contain the schema definition for that base. This image shows an example of a schema definition with properties, nested properties, and required properties:

      The base described by the schema above might look like this:

      With an example of the likes array:

      And an example of the profile object:
    • The key column in the base example shown above is common to all bases. The key is auto-generated if you do not specify one.
      Note: 

      If the key contains URL unsafe or reserved characters, make sure to URL-encode the key. Otherwise, it will lead to unexpected behavior.

    • In the context of the Deta Base connector in Nintex Automation Cloud, schema item actions interact with the schema fields as shown in the images above, and data/JSON item actions interact with the data field in a base.

      Data/JSON base in Deta.