Query FreshBooks Data through ODBC in Node.js

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript code outside of a browser. With the CData ODBC Driver for FreshBooks, you can access live FreshBooks data from Node.js apps and scripts. In this article, we walk through installing node-odbc and the required tools to create a simple Node.js app with access to live FreshBooks data.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live FreshBooks data in Node.js. When you issue complex SQL queries from Node.js to FreshBooks, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to FreshBooks and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to FreshBooks Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

To connect to FreshBooks, you can set the CompanyName and Token connection properties. Alternatively, you can use the OAuth authentication standard.

OAuth can be used to enable other users to access their own company data. To authenticate using OAuth, you will need to obtain the OAuthClientId and OAuthClientSecret by registering an app. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to FreshBooks through the CData ODBC Driver, you need to build node-odbc manually (after installing the required tools).

Installing the Required Tools

The following commands install the tools required to build node-odbc (note the -g parameter, which installs the tools globally).

npm i -g windows-build-tools
npm i -g node-gyp

Building node-odbc

After installing the required tools, create a directory for the Node.js app and install odbc (which builds the binary for us to use in our Node.js script).

mkdir nodeodbc
cd nodeodbc
npm i -g node

Querying FreshBooks from Node.js

With the ODBC Driver installed, a DSN Configured, and node-odbc built, we are ready to query live FreshBooks data from a Node.js app. The sample code below connects to a specific DSN and queries the Clients table.

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryFreshBooks() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData FreshBooks Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT Username, Credit FROM Clients');
    console.log(data);
}

queryFreshBooks();

Once you write the app, use node to execute the script:

node myscript.js

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for FreshBooks and start working with your live FreshBooks data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.