Replicate Multiple Billsby Accounts via the CData Sync CLI

CData Sync for Billsby is a stand-alone application that provides solutions for a variety of replication scenarios such as replicating sandbox and production instances into your database. Both Sync for Windows and Sync for Java include a command-line interface (CLI) that makes it easy to manage multiple Billsby connections. In this article we show how to use the CLI to replicate multiple Billsby accounts.

Configure Billsby Connections

You can save connection and email notification settings in an XML configuration file. To replicate multiple Billsby accounts, use multiple configuration files. Below is an example configuration to replicate Billsby to SQLite:

Windows

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<CDataSync>
  <DatabaseType>SQLite</DatabaseType>
  <DatabaseProvider>System.Data.SQLite</DatabaseProvider>
  <ConnectionString>Profile=C:\profiles\Billsby.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key;Domain=your_subdomain';</ConnectionString>
  <ReplicateAll>False</ReplicateAll>
  <NotificationUserName></NotificationUserName>
  <DatabaseConnectionString>Data Source=C:\my.db</DatabaseConnectionString>
  <TaskSchedulerStartTime>09:51</TaskSchedulerStartTime>
  <TaskSchedulerInterval>Never</TaskSchedulerInterval>
</CDataSync>

Java

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<CDataSync>
<DatabaseType>SQLite</DatabaseType>
  <DatabaseProvider>org.sqlite.JDBC</DatabaseProvider>
  <ConnectionString>Profile=C:\profiles\Billsby.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key;Domain=your_subdomain';</ConnectionString>
  <ReplicateAll>False</ReplicateAll>
  <NotificationUserName></NotificationUserName>
  <DatabaseConnectionString>Data Source=C:\my.db</DatabaseConnectionString>
</CDataSync>

Set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Billsby (see below).

Billsby API Profile Settings

Retrieve your API Key from the Billsby control panel under Settings > Configuration > API keys and webhooks. Your domain is the subdomain from your Billsby account URL.

Configure Queries for Each Billsby Instance

Sync enables you to control replication with standard SQL. The REPLICATE statement is a high-level command that caches and maintains a table in your database. You can define any SELECT query supported by the Billsby API. The statement below caches and incrementally updates a table of Billsby data:

REPLICATE AddonDetails;

You can specify a file containing the replication queries you want to use to update a particular database. Separate replication statements with semicolons. The following options are useful if you are replicating multiple Billsby accounts into the same database:

You can use a different table prefix in the REPLICATE SELECT statement:

REPLICATE PROD_AddonDetails SELECT * FROM AddonDetails 

Alternatively, you can use a different schema:

REPLICATE PROD.AddonDetails SELECT * FROM AddonDetails

Run Sync

After you have configured the connection strings and replication queries, you can run Sync with the following command-line options:

Windows

APISync.exe -g MyProductionAPIConfig.xml -f MyProductionAPISync.sql

Java

java -Xbootclasspath/p:c:\sqlitejdbc.jar -jar APISync.jar -g MyProductionAPIConfig.xml -f MyProductionAPISync.sql