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Avalara AvaTax Icon Avalara ODBC Driver

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

Access AvaTax data like you would a database - read, write, and update AvaTax Accounts, Customers, TaxCodes, Transactions, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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Replicate Avalara AvaTax Data from PowerShell


Write a quick PowerShell script to query Avalara AvaTax data. Use connectivity to the live data to replicate Avalara AvaTax data to SQL Server.



The CData ODBC Driver for Avalara AvaTax enables out-of-the-box integration with Microsoft's built-in support for ODBC. The ODBC driver instantly integrates connectivity to the real Avalara AvaTax data with PowerShell.

You can use the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC built into PowerShell to quickly automate integration tasks like replicating Avalara AvaTax data to other databases. This article shows how to replicate Avalara AvaTax data to SQL Server in 5 lines of code.

You can also write PowerShell code to execute create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations. See the examples below.

Create an ODBC Data Source for Avalara AvaTax

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.

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.

Connect to Avalara AvaTax

The code below shows how to use the DSN to initialize the connection to Avalara AvaTax data in PowerShell:

$conn = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcConnection $conn.ConnectionString = "DSN=CData AvalaraAvatax Source x64"

Back Up Avalara AvaTax Data to SQL Server

After you enable caching, you can use the code below to replicate data to SQL Server.

Set the following connection properties to configure the caching database:

  • CacheProvider: The name of the ADO.NET provider. This can be found in the Machine.config for your version of .NET. For example, to configure SQL Server, enter System.Data.SqlClient.

  • CacheConnection: The connection string of properties required to connect to the database. Below is an example for SQL Server:

    Server=localhost;Database=RSB;User Id=sqltest;Password=sqltest;

The SQL query in the example can be used to refresh the entire cached table, including its schema. Any already existing cache is deleted.

$conn.Open() # Create and execute the SQL Query $SQL = "CACHE DROP EXISTING SELECT * FROM " + $Transactions $cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand($sql,$conn) $count = $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery() $conn.Close()

The driver gives you complete control over the caching functionality. See the help documentation for more caching commands and usage examples. See the help documentation for steps to replicate to other databases.

Other Operations

To retrieve Avalara AvaTax data in PowerShell, call the Fill method of the OdbcDataAdapter method. To execute data manipulation commands, initialize the OdbcCommand object and then call ExecuteNonQuery. Below are some more examples CRUD commands to Avalara AvaTax through the .NET Framework Provider for ODBC:

Retrieve Avalara AvaTax Data

$sql="SELECT Id, TotalTax from Transactions" $da= New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcDataAdapter($sql, $conn) $dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable $da.Fill($dt) $dt.Rows | foreach { $dt.Columns | foreach ($col in dt{ Write-Host $1[$_] } }

Update Avalara AvaTax Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("UPDATE Transactions SET Code='051349' WHERE Id = @myId", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH") $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Insert Avalara AvaTax Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("INSERT INTO Transactions SET Code='051349' WHERE Id = @myId", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH") $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()

Delete Avalara AvaTax Data

$cmd = New-Object System.Data.Odbc.OdbcCommand("DELETE FROM Transactions WHERE Id = @myid", $conn) $cmd.Parameters.Add(new System.Data.Odbc.OdbcParameter("myId","001d000000YBRseAAH") $cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()