Creating or Editing a Database Connection

Before setting up a new Database Connection, we recommend reading up on preparing for Database Sync, and also how to prepare table or view for each Data Category: Customer data, Product data, Order data and Content data.

After you have set up a new Connection, Distil will interrogate the schema for your chosen database. It looks for any tables or views that conform to the criteria described in the articles list above – any that do will become available to sync into Distil. Once the Connection is in place, Distil will sync the available data once per day.

To create or edit a Database Connection: log into Distil and click the Settings gear icon on the bottom left, and then Data Connections on the top menu bar.

Any existing Data Connections will be displayed on the left, with some text identifying the database type and how many Data Sources (tables or views) the Connection includes.

Create a New Connection

To create a new Connection, click one of the available Database Types towards the bottom of the Data Connections panel.

Making a selection will display a form in the panel to the right. A new Postgres Connection is being created in the example below. 

Enter information or select options as follows:

• Connection Name: enter a unique and meaningful name for this Data Connection
• Description: enter a one line description, this will be displayed below the Connection Name in the user interface
• Service IP Address: enter the address of your database server (tip: read our article covering IP address whitelisting)
• Server Port: enter the port number (ensure that this port is open for Distil)
• Database Name: enter the name of your database as identified on your server
• Schema: enter the name of the schema containing the data you want to send to Distil (you don't need to enter a schema name when setting up a MySQL connection)
• Username and Password: the credentials of the account Distil can use to access your database (read our article covering best practices for database accounts)
• Enable SSH: we recommend setting up SSH keys, as described in our article on best practices

Once you have entered the required information, click Save Changes.

We strongly recommend testing the new Connection by clicking the Test Connection option next to the Save Changes button.

You can exit at any time without saving your changes by clicking Cancel.

View and Edit an Existing Connection

To view or edit an existing Connection, first click on the Connection name in the Data Connections panel. The panel to the right will display the available tables and views by Data Category (Customer, Product, Purchase History, Content).

Above the available tables and view you will see four options:

Here you can refresh the list of tables or views, and test the connection. You can also enable or disable the entire Connection without having to delete the details.

To edit the Connection, click Edit Connection. A form containing the saved Connection details will be displayed on the right. You can edit the form and re-test the Connection as needed.