Learn more
 

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Exact Online ODBC Driver to get started:

 Download Now

Learn more:

Exact Online Icon Exact Online ODBC Driver

The Exact Online ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live Exact Online data, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Exact Online like you would a database - read, write, and update Accounts, Divisions, Opportunities, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

In this article

Related articles

Rapidly Develop Exact Online-Driven Apps with Active Query Builder


Leverage the Active Query Builder SQL interface builder and the ease of .NET data access to create data-driven WinForms and ASP.NET apps.

Write standard .NET to expose Exact Online data through an SQL interface: Active Query Builder helps developers write SQL interfaces; the CData ODBC Driver for Exact Online enables standards-based access to Exact Online. This integration uses the Microsoft ADO.NET Provider for ODBC as a bridge between the ODBC Driver and the Active Query Builder objects to build a visual SQL composer.

Connect to Exact Online as an ODBC Data Source

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.

Exact Online uses the OAuth authentication standard. You can use the embedded OAuth credentials or you can register an OAuth app with Exact to obtain your own. In addition to the OAuth values, provide the Region. If Division is not set, the default Division is determined.

See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for more information.

Use SQL to Interact with Exact Online

Follow the steps below to create a WinForms visual query builder.

  1. Open Active Query Builder for .NET WinForms.
  2. In the new Windows Forms project go to the "File" menu and click "Connect..."
  3. Under Database Connections, click "Add..."
  4. Set your desired Connection Name (e.g. CData Exact Online), set Connection Type to "ODBC" and locate your previously configured DSN in the "User/System" DSN dropdown.
  5. Click "OK" to save the new connection.
  6. Back in the Database Connection wizard, select the newly created connection and click "OK."
  7. Click "File" > "New Query" to create a QueryBuilder

You can now build queries visually: Double-click a table in the Columns Pane Area and an entity/relationship diagram is displayed in the Query Building Area. Columns that you select in the diagram are added to the query.