Connect SQL form - Completing the Open tab

You can use the Open tab to enter a SQL statement that opens a single row in the database and copies its column values as properties onto a clipboard page. To execute the SQL statement on this tab, an activity uses the RDB-Open method.

As a best practice, include only one SQL statement on this tab. If your situation requires multiple statements, place one statement each in separate Connect SQL rules. Your activity can cause the statements to be executed in the desired sequence. If your situation requires many statements executed in sequence, consider using a stored procedure.

Note: As an alternative, if your application needs to perform a simple operations against an external database, it is best practice to use the External Database Table Mapping wizard or the Connector and Metadata wizard or the to configure access to the rows as an external class. When such external access is configured for an external table, you can use the Obj-Open, Obj-Browse, and other Obj- methods to interact with that table through a class that represents it; you do not need to create SQL connector rules. However, you can still use the Open tab to enter the SQL statement that saves an instance to the database. See About generating connector rules and Data Model category — Database Class Mappings page.

If the SELECT statement when executed causes no rows to be retrieved, or more than one row to be retrieved, the RDB-Open method produces a fail status, and no properties are added to the step page. Complete the Browse tab, not the Open tab, if you want to search the database in a way that may result in none, one, or multiple matches.

Note: The IBM Db2 data type DATE does not directly correspond to any Pega Platform property type. Use syntax similar to the following as a workaround:

SELECT TIMESTAMP(RPT_DATE, '00.00.00') AS ".RPT_DATE"

Properties retrieved by browsing an external database are not tracked for changes by Declare Expression processing.

Field	Description
Open SQL	Follow the guidelines in Data Mapping in SQL. Enter a single SQL statement directly into the text box. Typically this tab contains a `SELECT` statement, which may include the `WHERE` and `ORDER BY` clauses. You can use an `EXECUTE` statement (or equivalently a `CALL` statement for Oracle) on this tab. The results of the RDB-Open method are properties and values added to the step page (of the step that contains the RDB-Open method) for the selected row. (If the Step Page column of that step is blank, the system uses the primary page of the activity.)
Error Handler Flow	Optional. Identify a flow rule that is to be started when this connector rule is started by a flow rule but fails when the Integrator shape throws a `ConnectorException` exception. The default flow rule Work-.ConnectionProblem provides one approach for handling such problems. See Handling connector exceptions.
Test Connectivity	After you save this rule, you can click to confirm connectivity to the database. No database operations are performed. See More about Connect SQL rules.