Query Bullhorn CRM 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 Bullhorn CRM, you can access live Bullhorn CRM 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 Bullhorn CRM data.

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

Connecting to Bullhorn CRM 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.

Begin by providing your Bullhorn CRM account credentials in the following:

• DataCenterCode: Set this to the data center code which responds to your data center. Refer to the list of data-center-specific Bullhorn API URLs: https://bullhorn.github.io/Data-Center-URLs/

If you are uncertain about your data center code, codes like CLS2, CLS21, etc. are cluster IDs that are contained in a user's browser URL (address bar) once they are logged in.

Example: https://cls21.bullhornstaffing.com/BullhornSTAFFING/MainFrame.jsp?#no-ba... indicates that the logged in user is on CLS21.

Authenticating with OAuth

Bullhorn CRM uses the OAuth 2.0 authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, create and configure a custom OAuth app. See the Help documentation for more information.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Bullhorn CRM 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 Bullhorn CRM from Node.js

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

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryBullhornCRM() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData BullhornCRM Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT Id, CandidateName FROM Candidate');
    console.log(data);
}

queryBullhornCRM();

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 Bullhorn CRM and start working with your live Bullhorn CRM data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.