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Connect to live data from BambooHR with the API Driver

Connect to BambooHR

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Connect to BambooHR Data in Ruby


Connect to BambooHR data in Ruby with ruby-dbi, dbd-odbc, and ruby-odbc.

The CData ODBC Driver for BambooHR makes it easy to integrate connectivity to live BambooHR data in Ruby. This article shows how to create a simple Ruby app that connects to BambooHR data, executes a query, and displays the results.

Create an ODBC Connection to BambooHR Data

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the BambooHR Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\bamboohr.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for BambooHR (see below).

BambooHR API Profile Settings

In order to authenticate to BambooHR, you'll need to provide your API Key. To generate an API key, log in and click your name in the upper right-hand corner of any page to get to the user context menu. If you have sufficient permissions, there will be an "API Keys" option in that menu to go to the page, where you can create a new API Key. Additionally, you will need to set the Domain, found in the domain name of your BambooHR account. For example if your BambooHR account is acmeinc.bamboohr.com, then the Domain should be 'acmeinc'. Set both the API Key and Domain in the ProfileSettings property to connect.

Installing Ruby and Necessary Gems

If you do not have Ruby installed, refer to the Ruby installation page. With Ruby installed, you will need to install the ruby-dbi, dbd-odbc, and ruby-odbc gems:

gem install dbi gem install dbd-odbc gem install ruby-odbc

Create a Ruby App with Connectivity to BambooHR Data

Create a new Ruby file (for example: APISelect.rb) and open it in a text editor. Copy the following code into your file:

#connect to the DSN require 'DBI' cnxn = DBI.connect('DBI:ODBC:CData API Source','','') #execute a SELECT query and store the result set resultSet = cnxn.execute("SELECT Id, DisplayName FROM Employees WHERE Department = 'Sales'") #display the names of the columns resultSet.column_names.each do |name| print name, "\t" end puts #display the results while row = resultSet.fetch do (0..resultSet.column_names.size - 1).each do |n| print row[n], "\t" end puts end resultSet.finish #close the connection cnxn.disconnect if cnxn

With the file completed, you are ready to display your BambooHR data with Ruby. To do so, simply run your file from the command line:

ruby APISelect.rb Writing SQL-92 queries to BambooHR allows you to quickly and easily incorporate BambooHR data into your own Ruby applications. Download a free trial today!