Creating an ODBC connection for tsPortal

Applies to: tsPortal

tsPortal communicates with the MySQL server via two ODBC connections ("Open Database Connectivity"). General information on ODBC is available "here"

The ODBC driver (also called ODBC connector) for MySQL is available for download from the MySQL website but is more easily accessible from the Timestone Software website with the link below. The driver must be installed and configured on each and every computer wishing to use tsPortal..

An ODBC connection must be established on every computer wishing to run tsPortal

Downloading and installing the ODBC connector

Download the ODBC driver from the licensed downloads page of the Timestone Website. A direct download is available here

Download the driver/connector

Once downloaded run the installer on any computer wishing to use tsPortal.

Launching the driver connection utility

Once the driver is installed the connection must be configured using the ODBC Data Source Administrator utility. The following assumes the host computer is 64bit and FIlemaker Pro is also 64bit.

On 64bit machines

Launch the Windows ODBC Data Sources (64bit) utility.

Figure 1: The ODBC configuration window

Configuring the connection

Two connections are made using the following steps:

Create the first connection - tsportal

1. Select the System DSN tab. This will make the connection available to all users on this computer.
2. Click Add - a list of all installed drivers is presented. Scroll down the list and select MySQL ODBC Unicode
3. Create a connection as per the parameters in Figure 2. Make sure to substitute the IP address displayed in the screen grab to that of your MySQL server.
4. The user and password are both tsPortal.
5. Leave the Database window blank
6. Click OK to save the connection parameters

Figure 2: The tsportal connection

Create the second connection - tsportal2

1. Select the System DSN tab. This will make the connection available to all users on this computer
2. Click Add. A list of all installed drivers is presented. Scroll down the list and select MySQL ODBC Unicode
3. Create a connection as per the tsportal connection named tsportal2
4. The user and password are both tsPortal
5. In the Database window using the drop down to select the tsportal database
6. Click OK to save the connection parameters

Figure 3: The tsportal2 connection

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