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Avalara AvaTax Connectivity Solutions

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Query Avalara AvaTax Data from Node.js


The API Server exposes Web services that allow connectivity to your data. Use the OData endpoint of the CData API Server to execute CRUD queries to Avalara AvaTax data from Node.js.

The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for Avalara AvaTax, exposes Avalara AvaTax data (or data from any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers) as an OData endpoint, which can be queried from Node.js using simple HTTP requests. This article shows how to use the API Server to request JSON-formatted Avalara AvaTax data in Node.js.

Set Up the API Server

Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Avalara AvaTax OData services:

Deploy

The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.

The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.

Connect to Avalara AvaTax

After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Avalara AvaTax, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to Avalara AvaTax by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.

The primary method for performing basic authentication is to provide your login credentials, as follows:

  • User: Set this to your username.
  • Password: Set this to your password.

Optionally, if you are making use of a sandbox environment, set the following:

  • UseSandbox: Set this to true if you are authenticating with a sandbox account.

Authenticating Using Account Number and License Key

Alternatively, you can authenticate using your account number and license key. Connect to data using the following:

  • AccountId: Set this to your Account Id. The Account Id is listed in the upper right hand corner of the admin console.
  • LicenseKey: Set this to your Avalara Avatax license key. You can generate a license key by logging into Avalara Avatax as an account administrator and navigating to Settings -> Reset License Key.

You can then choose the Avalara AvaTax entities you want to allow the API Server access to by clicking Settings -> Resources.

Authorize API Server Users

After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. Access can also be restricted based on IP address; all IP addresses except the local machine are restricted by default. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL.

Consume Avalara AvaTax OData Feeds from Node.js

OData feeds are easy to work with in Node.js. You can use the HTTP client in Node.js to request JSON-formatted data from the API Server's OData endpoint. After making the request, you can construct the body of the response and call the JSON.parse() function to parse it into records.

The code below will make an authenticated request for Transactions data. The example URL below applies a simple filter that searches for records with a value of 051349 in the Code column.

var http = require('http'); http.get({ protocol: "http:", hostname: "MyServer.com", port: MyPort, path: "/api.rsc/Transactions?$filter=" + encodeURIComponent("Code eq '051349'"), auth: 'MyUser:MyAuthtoken' }, function(res) { var body = ''; res.on('data', function(chunk) { body += chunk; }); res.on('end', function() { console.log(body); var jsonData = JSON.parse(body); }); }).on('error', function(e) { console.log("Error: ", e); });